


Prompt32 (or That VirginSandor Fic)

by naturesinmyeye



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Canon Divergence - The Battle of the Blackwater, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Prompt Fic, Smut, Virgin!Sandor, romance but you have to squint because Sandor, sansan fest 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naturesinmyeye/pseuds/naturesinmyeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: Prompt32<br/>Summary: Written for the Sansan Fest 2015. Original prompt was for an AU, arranged marriage fic in which Sandor has a reputation for whoring but is, in fact, really body conscious and a virgin.   . . . big boots to try and fill. My usual triage of angst, drama and smut.<br/>Rating: M for Sandor language, smut, hints of abuse and some faked dub con.<br/>Warnings: See the ratings for most of them. Plus underage?  Sansa has no specific age in this one. Do with her what you will. Whatever floats your boat.<br/>Pairing: Sandor Clegane x Sansa Stark<br/>Word Count: >35k</p><p> </p><p>There was a sad twitch of a smile on his lips. “And what if your husband was green?” he asked in a voice so quiet Sansa almost misheard the question. </p><p>If your husband was green? What in Seven Hells did that mean? He wasn’t green. He went to brothels for heavens sake! But, oh! Sansa’s eyes grew wide and her breath caught in her throat. No one ever said what he did there! But that didn’t make any sense! How could he possibly be untouched as she was?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1 - Wedding Night

**Author's Note:**

> Well . . if you ever wanted a virginSandor fic to sink your teeth into, this is probably it. Written from a prompt given at this year's Sansan fest. It was probably only meant to spark a one shot . . .but here we are 8 chapters later. Enjoy loves! 
> 
> And do thank devilsbastian for her work as beta. This would not be anywhere near as good without her keen eye and kind words to keep me focused through a very rough holiday.

It was her wedding night. All her life Sansa Stark had dreamed of this moment. Up until her father’s death that is. Then her fantasies of welcoming, protective cloaks and handsome princes had come to an end; they were boarded up and shut away inside her like so many other hopes she had once wasted hours daydreaming about.

 

No one had expected her to choose him. He was nearly as much of a social pariah nowadays as she. After the Battle of the Blackwater, Sandor Clegane, the Hound, had been found, passed out drunk, several yards down from her door with five dead men surrounding him, apparently slain by his hand. Enemies sent to pillage the ladies’ quarters. If he hadn’t stayed, and moved on as he had threatened to do, there was no telling what the men might have done to her. Instead of spending a night beaten and raped, Sansa had tossed fitfully inside the rough comfort of his cloak until the first light of dawn.

 

The Hound was an unlikely hero in that respect. He had kept her body and virtue intact; from both himself and the intruders. But once it had been found out that Winterfell was a ruined pile of rock and rubble her value decreased by the day. Finally bored with her, Joffrey had given her several options as to her future, each seemingly as vile and demeaning as the other. He was a just King, he boasted; he would let the Lady have her pick of what was to become of the remainder of her days.

 

A marriage to Sandor had been one of the choices meant to hurt and embarrass her. He was as gruff and mean as ever, though Sansa was sure there was _something_ else after that night when he had come to her terrified, drunk, and reeling. And he still, never once, laid a cruel hand of harm upon her. In a peculiar sort of way, she trusted him as she did no other in King’s Landing. He was safe. That she knew for sure. There had been a blade at her throat once but it was as empty a threat as most of the garbage that poured forth from his mouth; harsh words used to isolate himself further. There was no longer any doubt in her mind over the wetness she had felt on his cheek. She had done that! Broken down a man as strong as he! Sansa was learning. He was made of something other than the shell of hateful armor he had forged to protect himself. Against what, she wasn’t sure, and maybe she would never know, but her odds of remaining safe and -dare she think it- one day happy lay with him. There wasn’t a soft center to be found within him. The very idea made Sansa snort through her nose. But he wasn’t an animal. He was a man. Troubled, it was true, though in a much different way from Trant, Gregor or Joffrey. Those men were _sick_. Sandor was . . . lost.

 

Sansa had been forced to watch him take a lashing two days after the Battle of the Blackwater. Once the flames had died off, and the dust had settled, it was determined the Hound’s sword and ferocity were worth more than a length of rope and the coin it would take to bury him. Insolence and the abandonment of his post could not, however, be ignored completely. Joffrey’s favoritism towards his loyal dog dimmed after it had been relayed to him all that Sandor had done towards the end of the battle.

 

Sandor -his name felt easier to speak after their night of strange intimacy- had been stripped of his Kingsguard status first. His armor had been removed, piece by piece in front of the court and he was made to kneel and shed his tunic. His wrists were bound and a wooden bench placed in front of him. Sansa had wondered what the bench was for. It became clear ten minutes later. One by one the remaining members of the Kingsguard had taken up a whip of corded leather and struck him seven times each on his back, a reminder of his lost place amongst them. During the second round Sandor had begun to grunt and grimace when he was struck. By the time the fifth man put down the whip Sandor was a sweating, swearing mess leaning heavily across the bench before him. Sansa’s eyes had begun to water almost as soon as it had all started but she dared not let her tears spill in front of Joff. That could spell disaster for her or perhaps even Sandor and she would not bring more pain upon him. She wanted to sob, though. She wanted to shout “enough” just as he had done for her. There was no Imp to come and rescue the Hound. There wasn’t _anyone_ to put an end to it. The only speck of mercy it seemed was when Ser Jaime, the last to take up the whip, struck Sandor. His blows appeared weaker than the rest to Sansa. It was a chilling, warped consolation.

 

Sandor had to be dragged out of the throne room when it was over, unable to stand on his own. The room stank of blood. Sansa knew that smell well now. The Hound was thrown in a lower dungeon, to recover amid squalor and darkness. Sansa vomited as soon as she made it back to her room. There was no word the next day as to whether Sandor had survived and for weeks Sansa paced the halls anxiously. She ate little, slept less and cried most nights. By the time he was released, she was padding her dresses to make them fit correctly and using thick ivory pastes under her eyes to hide the rings of tired misery beneath them from Joffrey.

 

“You look like shit,” he told her the first time they were alone afterwards, high up on one the battlements. She had burst into tears, unable to express why the sight of him walking under his own power and goading her on once again was such a wondrous thing. Alarmed, he had shoved a torn piece of coarse linen into her hands. It made her cry all the harder. He stared off at the stars and shifted uncomfortably on his feet while she wept.

 

“You looked rather unwell yourself last I saw you,” she said wobbly, after blowing her nose in as lady like a manner as she could manage. “It is good to see you again. I think I should have suffered heartbreak if you had not recovered fully.”  There, she thought, let him do with that what he would. He was clever enough to read through her courtesies. _I was afraid for you. I missed you. I would grieve if your life ended and die alongside you._

 

In the fragile light cast by a nearby torch she could see him chew at his lip. He didn’t give her any words back; only a low, long growl, that perhaps was meant to be a sigh, before he offered his arm and walked her back to her room. It was the first time he had given her the choice to touch him and not taken her arm inside his hand to drag her along beside him. It was a small victory, but one Sansa took pride in achieving.

 

After that they would find one another along the stone battlements at night. She learned the path of his patrol and he took the time to linger in particular spots. They rarely spoke. Most nights it was only the wolves howling in the distance, the hoot of an owl, the far off din of the city settling for sleep and the sound of their breath. But there was something happening between them. One night, while he kept his gaze on the moon, she had placed her hand over top of his resting flat on the gray slabs in front of them. It was covered in cold metal; hard and unyielding but her hand soon warmed it, making the gauntlet seem more alive. He felt her. Even through leather and metal he felt her touch and inhaled deeply at the contact. He never stopped looking up at the sky above them. It may have been a disappointment to another woman but Sansa knew better than to fret at his lack of response. The truth of it was, he didn’t yell at her nor yank his hand out from under hers. That was as loud a signal of acceptance from the Hound as one could expect.  

 

The routine continued for another month. Sansa wondered what it was exactly that was developing between them. She knew she was feeling a timid affection for the scarred warrior but his eyes and lips gave her no insight as to what he was thinking. Sansa would have expected him to kiss her, ravage her, _somethin_ g at some point, once she had taken the first step to show him his advances wouldn’t be spurned. Especially with his reputation. Sansa was no longer a child or a Lady held in high esteem. She knew what brothels were and what they were used for. And it was no secret amongst the handmaidens and kitchen staff that the Hound of Westeros had a thirst for whores greater than most men. Sansa had, at first, been appalled and dismayed at the information. But after a time the thought made her sad. She had never witnessed a woman on Sandor’s arm in court or at a feast. He was always alone. Terribly alone. Could a man be blamed for paying for something that was quite clearly never given to him?

 

Still, Sansa had hoped that after she had touched him the behavior would stop. It did not. She tried to reassure herself that there were other forms of entertainment to be had in the whore houses besides the pleasures of the flesh. There was gambling, drinking, cards and music. And Sandor had never claimed to be hers. There was no reason for her to feel such jealousy over a grown man’s personal life. Yet, she couldn’t help the sting that pricked her heart whenever she overheard one of the kitchen girls laughing at the late hour in which the Hound dragged himself back to the Keep once again. 

 

Then, there came a time, when he pressed his hands down flat in front of him and Sansa saw he wore no gauntlets. No gloves of any kind kept his skin from the elements or from her. She had looked to his face, hoping he would give her some sort of clue as to how she should proceed. There was nothing but a blank stare off into the night. Then she saw his jaw clench several times. Gathering all her courage, Sansa placed her hand over top of his and tried hard not to react as he did. Five long, agonizing minutes went by before he turned his head to find her eyes.

 

“Little Bird, what have you done?” he rasped. The fingers underneath hers twitched.

 

“I’m not certain,” she whispered, both frightened and thrilled in equal measure. He kept his eyes locked on hers for a minute more and then went back to his star gazing. Sansa let out the breath she’d been holding. There were no more gossiping giggles from the servants after that night as to the Hound’s nighttime activities. Sansa glowed from the inside out.

 

Three weeks after their first skin to skin contact, he married her. It wasn’t his doing, though he didn’t argue when the sentence had been proclaimed. He took it with his usual stoic grace that passed for an image of unconcerned rudeness to those who didn’t care or know how to look at it properly. Sansa had weighed each option set before her heavily. After all, hand holding hardly amounted to the promise of marital bliss she had once longed for. Perhaps he _did_ hate her and was only toying with her. Perhaps he wanted only to boast one day he had bedded a Lady and once the deed had been done he would scorn her. Neither of those scenarios felt right in Sansa’s mind though.  If he’d wanted a Lady’s name to pin to his belt, he’d had his chance the night of the Blackwater.

 

“I choose the Hound,” Sansa had announced the morning after Joffrey’s ultimatum. The throne room around her immediately burst into a buzz and hum of shocked mummers. Sandor’s eyebrows had risen to his hairline. It was the first time Sansa could ever recall seeing surprise register on his face. It took effort not to laugh.

 

The ceremony was brief. The cloak he gave her was yellow and softer than she would have expected. When they were told they could seal their union with a kiss she had looked up at him expectantly. He hesitated, took a step forward and placed a quick, chaste kiss on her forehead. Sansa was grateful he chose not to make their first kiss a public spectacle. She hadn’t had much experience with kisses and was sure she would have made a disaster of it in front of an audience. But there was also a part of her that moped over her husband’s lack of enthusiasm. Had she misread him entirely?

 

There was a dinner after. Not a feast. A traitor’s daughter and a dog that had defied its master didn’t deserve a true wedding feast but Joffrey couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try and make a mockery of the both of them, so a large crowd of peasants had been allowed into one of the servants dining areas to toast the newly wedded couple. All through the meal Sansa worried while Sandor gulped down wine and let his eyes seethe in anger.

 

Sansa pecked at her food and had two glasses of wine herself, to try and calm her growing nervousness. She was a maiden after all and there were certain activities that would be expected of her. Mistreatment wasn’t a concern, but she’d been told it could be a painful thing when her maidenhead tore. No one ever seemed to have a delicate word to place with the act. It was always something harsh like rip or tear. It certainly sounded painful and Sansa wondered if Sandor would be gentle with her if she asked.

 

Once a sufficient amount of time passed, Sandor stood and put his hand out to her. It was time then, she realized. Rising on feet that no longer seemed attached to her body, Sansa followed him to his quarters. They had slipped out of the dining room unnoticed; everyone was too drunk off the King’s wine and ale at that point to care if they were in attendance or not.

 

The walk was silent between the two of them. The echoing stomp of his boots seemed like lightening crashes to Sansa, each one bringing her closer to a storm.  Would it be a raging, tree splitting hurricane or a breezy, summer rain that washed over her? At the end of the hallway he stopped at a door, the word “Hound” burned into it. Below someone had etched “deserter” with a knife. He put his hand on the knob but didn’t turn it.

 

“Why?” he asked suddenly, a harsh tone to his voice. “Before this door opens you’ll tell me why.”

 

Sansa gulped, willing her heart to stop pounding so frightfully against her chest. She couldn’t say that she loved him. He’d never stop mocking her if she professed those words, she was sure of it. Searching her mind for an answer, she jumped when he barked at her.

 

“Well, girl?”

 

“I . . .” she fumbled, starting over. “You didn’t leave me. I won’t leave you either.” It was the simplest answer she could offer. It was blunt, to the point and should please him. The words she spoke had their desired effect. She saw his tongue work under the skin of his cheek. Then he nodded and opened the door for her.

 

“Not a lady’s chambers,” he said gruffly. “No frills and fancy laces.”

 

“I wasn’t expecting them,” she answered as he shut the door behind them. It was a sparse space. There was a large bed to the left. His frame required it. Near it was a chest and small table with an oil lamp upon it that he lit. As she took in the rest of the room, he lit candles set within sconces recessed into the walls. Her chest had been brought to the room and sat in front of her, beside a table and a single chair. There was a hearth that looked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. Wood, dry as parchment, sat stacked next to it. He caught her staring at it.

 

“You want a fire?” he asked, keeping his eyes from her.

 

“No,” she replied. The room _did_ seem cold but she remembered a wild look in his eyes and the reflection of green flames within them. Another night they could try for a fire but she wouldn’t be cruel to him now.

 

The only other piece of furniture in his room was a bookcase beside a window in the opposite corner from the bed. It was overflowing with books. Sansa gasped and walked straight for it, brushing past her husband. All the hate he gave her over her stories and he had a finer collection then she! His were texts though, she realized, her eyes skimming over the titles on the spines. There were books stacked on top of books. Some shelves held two rows of them crammed together to form tight blocks of leather and paper. They smelled heavenly. Battle guides, butchering and hunting techniques, collections of maps, house histories, instructions on the proper treatment and maintenance of armor. On and on they went. Books on insects and horses and plants. She hadn’t thought him a scholar! He never let on. Her hand reached out to trace the length of one of the books reverently. There was much she had to learn about him.

 

She looked over to him, unsure as to whether she should comment or keep quiet. He shrugged at her, then seemed fascinated with removing dirt from under his nails. Sansa looked back at the books. It would take her years to read them all. If he allowed it.

 

 Her heart skipped when she saw the title of one book. It was obviously old; worn and falling apart at the spine. But the title was still clear. It was a book of fairy tales. Sansa pointed at it but didn’t touch it. It was her turn to demand answers.

 

“Why?” she asked, keeping her finger near the book in question.

 

“It was my mother’s,” he said darkly. Sansa wasn’t sure why thinking of his mother should elicit such a response. “She’s dead,” he continued, only partially slaking her curiosity. “It’s all I’ve got left of her.”

 

“Oh,” Sansa said meekly. She hadn’t meant to upset him. Turning herself to the bookcase, she gave him her back while she blinked to remove the tears that had sprung up. She was sad for him but also joyous that he should share a bit of himself with her. The sound of buckles being underdone came from behind her. He was taking off his armor.

 

“Do you need help?” she offered. He shrugged at her again. It wasn’t a refusal. He wasn’t at all shy in expressing those. If he didn’t want help he would have told her so. Moving beside him, she knelt and pinched the clasps on his greaves. He tossed the pieces of armor onto his chair and she followed his actions. Her fingers weren’t used to the work. She’d only gotten one of the greaves off of him by the time he had finished with everything else. Struggling with the last clasp, his hands were suddenly on top of hers, pressing her fingers into the correct position to release the spring.

 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, craning her neck to look up at him. He tossed the last piece of armor onto the pile covering the chair and spilling onto the floor. Then he sat heavily on the bed. Sansa remained on her knees, fiddling with a ribbon on her dress and unsure as to what she should do next. She wasn’t the expert here and had expected him to lead. “Shall I undress?” she tired, nervous chatter tumbling out of her. “Or would you prefer to do it? Laurie, my handmaiden, used to help me. She said some men like to undress their wives. I suppose I won’t have a handmaiden any longer, will I?”

 

“Not with the King’s coin you won’t,” he remarked. “Does the Lady require one?”  There was a hidden sneer in his tone. Sansa didn’t care for it.

 

“No,” she answered, “a Clegane doesn’t require the comforts of the high court. In fact, they seem quite unnecessary, don’t you agree?”  She smiled despite her fear that her boldness would earn her a tongue lashing. They were partners now and she wished he would see their union as such.

 

Sandor didn’t yell or holler. He didn’t push her down or tell her she was stupid. Instead he threw back his head and laughed. Shocked, Sansa stayed locked in place until she cautiously laughed along with him.

 

“Aye, a Clegane now, for whatever that’s worth,” he said, his laughter dying and the brief hint of light leaving his eyes. Sansa swore then and there she’d do everything in her power to get that light to come back as often as possible. “You should have taken exile or the marriage to the squire.”

 

“I said I wouldn’t leave you,” she said briskly, the fact that he’d paid attention to her options and _remembered_ , escaping her for the moment. “Exile contained a loneliness I couldn’t bear and the squire is simple and hideo . . .” she stopped short of uttering the word fully, realizing how backwards her thoughts would seem to him.

 

He was too perceptive to let the half spoken word go though. “Oh, aye,” he mocked, “a terrible sight that one is. It’s good you chose the more handsome option.”

 

The skin of her lip broke she had bitten it so hard. Sansa knew there was nothing she could say to make him believe he wasn’t hideous in her eyes.  Not yet. Not with new born marriage vows between them. Later on perhaps, she might be able to convince him, but not in this moment with both their hearts becoming further exposed and questioning of one another.

 

“You’re bleeding,” he stated, leaning down to rub his thumb across her lip. “You ought to stop. I won’t force you. You know it?”

 

Sansa felt her whole world collapse in on itself and then, a second later, explode all around her at his words. She _knew_ she could trust him. Knew it down to the marrow in her bones.  She had made the right decision. _He_ might not see it yet, but one day he would.

 

Nodding her head, she stood and pulled at the ribbons and buttons on the front of her dress. This one was easy to manage on her own. There were no ties in the back in hard to reach places. Sandor cleared his throat. “I said I wouldn’t force you,” he said loudly and more clearly than before.

 

“I heard you,” she told him. “You’re not forcing me. My own fingers are doing the work. I can’t sleep in my dress.” That was a fact he couldn’t argue. Facts were something straightforward to win him over with. Stepping out of her dress, she sat herself down on the bed next to him. His body visibly leaned away from her. _Oh for heaven’s sake_! She wasn’t that terrible of a bride was she?  Then her stomach plummeted as she thought that maybe she was. He had been forced into this marriage just as much as she. Though she had assumed he wouldn’t mind she had never actually taken the time to ask him if he could live with her for all his days. Sansa felt an uneasy guilt coil up in her belly.

 

“I’m  . . .“ –Sansa trembled while gooseflesh pebbled her chilled skin- “I’m sorry if I’m not what you would have chosen. I did you a disservice by forcing this upon you.”

 

His jaw worked mercilessly while she saw several thoughts flit over his features. Finally, he settled on one. “Go to sleep, Little Bird. You’re not a disservice and you know it. There’s only one disgrace in this room and you’re not it. You’re more than an entire pack of dogs deserves.”

 

It took her breath away. He did care! Somewhere inside him. And he didn’t know how to reach for it any more than she did. Her mouth opened to speak but he shook his head at her.  “Go to sleep,” he ordered her again.

 

Sansa reached for the furs, to pull them back and crawl beneath them, but she paused when she heard a loud crash in the hallway. There were people coming! The heavy footfall of more than one man could be heard. Then came the sound of Joffrey cursing.

 

“Your Grace, perhaps your room would be preferable right now?” Trant’s voice boomed in the hallway. “The Hound will fuck her bloody. I’m sure of it.”

 

“I want to hear it,” Joffrey whined, his voice tipsy and slurred from alcohol. “I want to hear that bitch bay when he breaks her.”  The sound of someone sliding down the Hound’s door was heard.

 

Sandor growled near her. “Fucking cunt,” she heard him say under his breath.

 

“What do we do?” Sansa whispered, true fear tainting her voice. Joff wouldn’t leave until he’d gotten what he wanted. One way or another. This was awful. She didn’t want her first time to be a show that would end in blood and tears for her. Silently she wept and looked at Sandor in misery. He looked almost as wretched as she.

 

“We give him what he thinks he wants,” he whispered back to her. Somehow, he could keep his voice low and still keep the growl. Her eyes grew wide and she nodded once. Was he going to have her after all? With her tormentor, of all people, listening? “Do as I say and you won’t bleed tonight,” Sandor told her.

 

Sansa cried out when he lifted her up bodily and dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed. There was an audible thump and the head board of the bed smacked into the wall. Sansa gasped. She trusted him but she wasn’t sure of his intentions and it frightened her.

 

“You wanted this. Remember that, girl!” Sandor shouted, his head facing the door. “You’re going to be one sore piece of arse in the morning! You want me to fuck you in that petty little hole?”  He was looming over top of her, one knee on the bed and his arms around her. But he wasn’t holding her down. She was free to move out from under him at any time. She was silent and he looked at her meaningfully, poking her sharply in the rib.

 

“N-No” she said shakily, catching onto the ruse. “No, please! Don’t!” she shouted when he nodded at her encouragingly. Joffrey giggled from the other side of the door.

 

“Too late for regretting _my Lady_ ,” he said forebodingly. Scooping her dress up off the floor, he ripped part of the skirt in two while she continued her false cries and tears. Joffrey cackled from the hallway and Sansa’s heart burned with anger. Who was he to take this night from them and turn it into a mummer’s farce? She hated the worm!

 

“Stop! Stop! It hurts!” she screamed. Sandor shook the headboard with his arms, banging it against the stones behind it. There was a solid crack every time and Sansa wondered why he was doing it. He ducked down to put his mouth near her ear.

 

“Sing a high note. Short. A few times over,” he instructed. She did as he asked, all the while confused at what they were playing at. After her burst of careless music, he stopped the headboard suddenly. “Fuck!” he bellowed, before going still. After a few moments he made sure to tell the door, “I’ve had better.”

 

There was applause from the doorway. “Well struck dog!” Joffrey shouted. “Well struck indeed. The little bitch has learned a lesson. I might see fit to put you on the Kingsguard again some day if you keep her miserable.”  Then the footsteps from before retreated; Joffrey’s howling laughter mixing with Trant’s vulgar comments and the echo of clanking armor.

 

Sansa stayed where she was on the bed. Sandor’s form was above her but he kept his face turned from hers. He waited until the footsteps could no longer be heard. Then he roared in rage and flew across the room to fling the chair, armor and all, at one of the walls. Sansa sat up and covered her ears, shaking in the shadow of his wrath. Had she done wrong?  He was shouting, cursing at the pile of armor on the floor, kicking it and going red in the face.

 

“Please,” she cried. “Please stop!’ He froze at the sound of her voice. It was if he had suddenly been reminded that she was there. Sansa watched him swallow several times, out of breath and squinting at her. Then he turned on his heel, picking up the over turned chair and forcefully sitting down in it.

 

“Go to sleep,” he barked viciously. He was furious, but not at her.

 

“I’m frightened,” she said brokenly, wiping at her eyes and trying to stop her tears.

 

“He’s gone. I’ll sleep here,” he told her. His voice was brusque. Not completely uncaring, but short and curt none the less. Sansa wanted her father’s arms desperately in that moment. She’d just been more or less forced to act out a rape on her wedding night and there were only cold furs to comfort her instead of the warm embrace of a husband who loved her.  She couldn’t stop her next move. She was driven to feel something other than the anger and hollowness inside her.

 

Getting to her feet, she trembled the entire way across the room to him. Sandor eyed her with suspicion. Standing in front of him, they were almost eye level though he was sitting. Carefully, she brought her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead down into the dip in his collar bone. The last of her tears collected there. He sat stiff and unmoving as stone, but when Sansa turned her head she saw the knuckles that gripped the edge of his seat were white.  Drawing back, she gave his cheek a light kiss.

 

“Thank you,” she murmured, trying to back the simple words with love and sincerity. She was grateful. He had once again done the best he could for her considering the circumstances. His eyes bore into hers, seeking out lies or weakness. When he found none, he turned her around and gave her a gentle push at her shoulder, sending her to bed.

 

In the morning he was gone before she woke. Her ripped dress was hanging over the back of his chair with strong thread and an assortment of needles nearby. A plate of fruits and dainty, pink frosted cakes were on the table. Sansa’s vision blurred. Hounds could be cruel, pitiless creatures, yes, but they could also be remarkably kind towards those they felt were a part of their pack.

 


	2. Chapter 2 - Confessions

The second morning of Sansa’s marriage played out much like her first. Sandor was gone when she woke and on the table there were berries and split yeast rolls with butter. But in addition to the offering of food, there was also a porcelain pitcher and basin for washing. There were vines and flowers painted in a pretty pattern; blue and purple buds no larger than the nail on her smallest finger. He wasn’t the type of man to bring flowers, and yet, he had found a way to do so. The water had retained a bit of warmth and Sansa hummed cheerfully while she freshened herself before eating.

 

After her light meal, she took to the hallways. The walls were spread far and the corridors vast in the Red Keep but Sansa had no doubt that she was still a prisoner. Her cage was large and gilded, and there was no terror inducing master lording over her any longer, but it was a prison she herself had chosen to remain inside. As long as her jailer was now a dog instead of a lion, Sansa felt more at ease. At ease enough that, prisoner or not, she thought that she should find something to do to pass the time since Sandor seemed uninterested in her during the day. His shift started in the afternoon and ran into the first few hours of night. Sansa surmised he must train, eat and bathe at some point as well but she wasn’t privilege to her husband’s full schedule yet. All she knew was he seemed to be avoiding her like a diseased Sally.

 

Her wanderings brought her through the kitchens; hot, hurried, bustling rooms that Sansa decided she had no business being in. Everyone was rough; they all spoke in course tongues and plunged chapped hands into vats of steaming water or mounds of floured dough. Plucking a lemon cake from a tray, Sansa made a hasty retreat. Her next stop was the royal seamstress’ room. It was a large space overrun with fabrics of every imaginable shade and material. There were wooden dummies, work benches and frazzled but kind looking girls with pins between their teeth. Sansa felt as if this were her place, if they would have her.

 

The royal seamstress, Ada, was only too happy to have Sansa’s help. The woman used to measure and dress Sansa when she had been in better standing with the King. Now Sansa sewed her own dresses. She didn’t mind the task. Sewing had always been a talent of hers and one she enjoyed. Ada set Sansa to work right away, promising her chores every afternoon, except on the seventh day, and gave her an advance on her first week’s salary. It was only a small handful of silver but it gave Sansa a sense of accomplishment to know she could afford her own silks and trinkets. She didn’t wish to be a burden to Sandor.  The day passed pleasantly with labor and purpose to push it forward.

 

Whenever she brushed her hair and plaited it for sleep, Sandor looked at her as if he were a starving man being shown an elegant feast and told he wasn’t allowed to touch it. It drove her mad. He most certainly _could_ have his meal and was denying himself for reasons unknown to her. Every night he found something to do other than pay attention to her. He read, or polished his armor, drank or honed his sword. She would wait, patiently, until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and finally strip out of her dress on her own. At times, she struggled, but he didn’t offer to help with the task. Once she had wriggled out of her dress, Sansa would stand near him and wait. Every night it was the same.

 

“Go to sleep,” he instructed. “I’ll sleep in the chair.” Sansa brushed her lips against his temple, which always caused him to flinch. Then she would wait a beat and, when he didn’t respond, shuffle over to the bed. In the morning he was dressed and gone before the sun was up. There would be the usual plate of food and fresh water waiting for her. What was wrong with her? Didn’t he want her?

 

The one exception was the first night after Joffrey’s lewd eavesdropping. That night, when Sansa approached him, Sandor’s eyes had settled on a faded yellow bruise encircling her upper arm. It was a mark from a week ago and not his doing. He looked at her arm like he wanted to tear it from her body to remove the sight of it. Instead, he put his hand below the bruise, mindful not to touch the sore, healing flesh, to turn her around and send her to bed. After that, he didn’t touch her again.

 

On their fifth night married, she dug down into her trunk to find a shortened sleeping gown meant for balmy summer nights. It wasn’t yellow; more of a bright gold but it was close enough to her husband’s house color. She found one of his finer tunics and put it over the glossy gown as a robe, leaving it untied and hanging open. His behavior was ridiculous in her mind. She wasn’t even nervous any more. She just wanted it over with! Even if he didn’t consummate their marriage he had to stop sleeping in the chair. It wasn’t right and she was going to have her way in this. When Sandor entered the room that evening he took one look at her, turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Sansa hadn’t cried so mournfully since he’d been placed in the dungeons. She waited up for hours and he didn’t return. Her mind filled with scenes of another woman holding his attention and she wailed inconsolably into her pillow before collapsing into a nightmarish sleep.

 

The following day there was no plate sitting on the table when she woke. Sansa dressed and found something in the kitchens instead. The day was dull, her heart aching throughout it.  Ada sent her back to her chambers in the late afternoon, assuming she was ill. Afternoon stretched into evening and evening into darkness. Sansa stood and stomped her foot. It was time for both of them to stop acting like children. If she was upset with her husband’s behavior she had every right to tell him so. She still knew his daily patrol.

 

Sansa placed herself in a spot she knew he would have to pass through sooner or later. Half an hour passed before she saw his shape, walking towards her through the cover of night. He stopped short, several feet from her, lowering his eyes. Was that guilt or grief on his face? She was too angry to care any longer. Marching over to him, she struck his chest with a finger, an impossible act to even consider weeks ago. “Why won’t you sleep in the bed with me?” she demanded shrilly. If he wanted a bird she would shriek at him all he liked. “Is there something wrong with me, Clegane?” she challenged, using his surname to grab his attention.  “You used to like my teats if I recall correctly!”

 

He rolled his eyes at her, and made to move past her, but she moved with him. Anywhere he stepped, she stepped as well, preventing him from moving forward. “I’m on duty,” he finally huffed irritably.

 

“You had time enough for me before we married!” she said, slamming him with irrefutable truth. A thought struck her. It was never said that the Hound had _women_ at the brothels. “Would you prefer I was a boy?” she asked quietly, losing some of her courage. If that were the issue, there was no solving the problem between them.

 

He laughed long and hard at that. “No, Little Bird, I like women just fine and your teats are enough to make a man stumble.” Sansa sighed in relief. The laughter seemed to have set both of them at ease.

 

“Then what is it?” she pleaded. “Please, Sandor, I’m your wife. If you don’t want to lie with me don’t I deserve to know why?”

 

Sandor rubbed a hand across his entire face. Sansa didn’t think she’d ever seen him look quite so weary before. “It’s not you, Sansa. Any man would cut his balls off to have a chance to bed you. I’m no different. But . . .”

 

The end of his thought never arrived. Instead, he lifted her fingers to the edge of his burnt mouth. Most of his lips were intact but the corner on one side was scared and jagged. It sagged a bit and never frowned or smiled.

 

“It’s disgusting. Don’t shake your head at me! It is and there are no stories you can come up with to change it. Do you know what it’s like to have your mouth slit open because it melted shut?” he asked. “In order to eat and keep on living the tissue has to be sliced open because the fire sealed the two halves together. Then it has to be done again in three days time. And again. The body tries to patch two bleeding pieces together and you’ve got to keep on hacking it open. Can you feel it?”

 

Sansa nodded her head, not daring to speak. This was his way it seemed. He buried memories and feelings like dogs buried bones; then he seemed to forgot, as the dog did, where he’d put them until, one day, he found many of them all strung together in the same place. Then the words came out of him like rain from swollen thunder clouds. Or maybe he didn’t forget. Maybe he remembered everything, all the time, and it was only she that could give him a voice when he could no longer stand to remain silent.  

 

“I can’t,” he said morosely. Then he dropped her hand and opened his mouth, hooking the damaged corner with his finger to show her the back of his mouth. There were teeth missing. “The gums burnt,” he said after she’d had a good look. “When the fire was done with my lips it kept on burning through to the next thing. Had four teeth rot out because of it and new ones never came in. Ever try to eat with burnt gums?”  Steady, plump tears rolled down Sansa’s face. They couldn’t be helped. “Stop crying,” he barked at her.

 

“I can’t!” she wept. “How am I to react from such stories? I’m not unfeeling towards you. I have a heart and it hears you.”

 

“I don’t want pity,” he growled.

 

She grabbed his face in both her hands. “I don’t pity you, Sandor,” she said, steadying her voice to a level of calm honesty. “I hurt _with_ you. I grieve for you. And then I find I care for you more than I did moments before.”

 

His head snapped out of her hold. “What did you say?” he demanded. His face showed anger but his eyes said something else. His orbs of stormy gray begged her to restate her declaration.

 

“I care for you,” she repeated. Their hands clasped together between their bodies. He squeezed at hers, while his hair fell over his face. She thought there was a catch in his next breath. “Very much so. You’re . . . have you ever seen false dragon eggs?” His curtain of hair moved as he nodded. Most people of any slight high born birth had. The rocks were pitted, rough and humble looking. Nothing of much importance from the outside. People used to think they contained dragons, but when the stones were cracked open, they found stunning clusters of crystals instead, fractured rainbows multiplying when light hit them. Inside, the stones held a precious, secret beauty.

 

“You’re a false dragon egg,” she whispered, reaching up to comb some of the hair out of his face. His eyes were shut tightly and his brow furrowed with deep wrinkles. He looked like he was suffering through a terrible wound. “Not much to look at on the outside, I suppose, but there’s an entire world of extraordinary splendor inside you.”

 

Sansa watched his head shake slowly, trying to refuse her words, but he kept his hands in hers. She plowed on, while he still allowed it. “And you’re not disgusting to look at, Sandor, you’re not,” she almost whined when he shook his head more forcefully. “Your hair is fine and your eyes are something to get lost inside. Your build is strong and your-“

 

“Stop,” he bid her. There were little creases in his chin, below his lip. “That’s enough.”

 

“It’s not,” she sighed. His hands had moved to her forearms where he gripped her. Breathing through his nose, it was some time before his eyes opened.

 

“I have to finish my round,” he stated. Sandor stood tall and the emotions she had stirred within him slid from his features as easily as water would from his armor. “Wait up for me?”

 

Sansa smiled proudly. “Of course.”

 

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Sansa fretted over what she should wear to greet him. Sandor had asked her to wait on him, and she would, but she didn’t know what she was waiting for. Should she keep herself fully clothed or would he take that as a sign of coldness from her? She certainly wasn’t going to wear the short gown and his tunic again! The hurt from his reaction to that still lingered. There was a brief moment, when she thought about laying herself out naked on the bed, but she quickly dismissed it. Her courage didn’t run that high. He seemed to accept her donned in small clothes and that is what she finally settled on. Then she paced and thumbed through one of his books.

 

He came to her not an hour later. There were two skins of wine in one of his hands and two cups in the other. He poured himself a glass first, tossing it back with practiced ease. Then he poured half a cup and offered it to her before refilling his own empty glass.

 

She put a hand up in front of her. “No, thank you,” she tried to refuse. She wanted her wits about her for the time being.

 

“It’s not for you,” he growled. “Drink.”

 

Sandor thrust the wine into her hands and Sansa relented. He wanted her relaxed and loose it seemed. Perhaps he was going to bed her this night and was trying to spare her some pain. But he had said the drink wasn’t for her. Then her imbibing was for him? What in the Seven Kingdoms was it meant to do for him? Wine was for courage, wound cleaning, celebrating and forgetting. Which one was he after tonight? Sansa sipped at her wine while he polished off his second glass. It was pale amber in color and sweet; wine that she preferred and not his usual choice. The cakes, the wine, sleeping in a chair, the ruse to throw Joffrey off their scent. Sansa could almost sense what it all meant.

 

He worked at his armor while taking down a third glass. With a fourth in his hand, he gestured at her to sit. She took the bed and he the chair. Then he stared off at the wall with a troubled look on his face. He looked like a man facing the gallows on the morrow. Scared and alone. But he wasn’t alone. She was right there!

 

“You never told anyone did you?” he asked, pointing at the ruined half of his face.

 

“No, of course not,” Sansa smiled faintly, remembering. “You said you’d kill me if I did.”

 

“I wouldn’t have.”

 

“I know.”

 

“But you didn’t tell.”

 

“You asked me not to,” she said plainly.

 

Sansa watched his face mull something over. Then he took a drink of his wine and sighed. “You’re different,” he said. It sounded like an uneasy compliment.  

 

“So are you,” she countered, shrugging as he liked to do. He snorted and then looked at her seriously.

 

“If I told you something . . . you would keep it here? In this room?” he questioned. Sansa saw a brief flash of worry and vulnerability on his face. He was calculating the odds of him winning if he trusted her once again.

 

“I will,” she promised. “I’m your wife and . . . and your friend as well. You can trust me, Sandor.” Sansa’s mind begged for him to believe her.

 

He was up and pacing as she had done earlier in the evening. There was agitation and nerves in his step. When he tried to drink from his cup he found it empty and reached for the second wine skin. He brought it over to her and sat next to her on the bed. Pouring wine into her cup first, he then proceeded to drink directly from the skin in his hands. He didn’t open his mouth until she’d brought her cup to her lips three times.

 

“You know what happens in a marriage bed?” he asked. Sansa nodded her head in answer. “And you know the difference between a maiden and a woman?”

 

“Y-yes,” she stuttered. Was he trying to bolster her courage? Then why did it seem like it was his courage that he was trying to build up? Sansa found she was horribly confused.

 

“Men are green as well,” he said, staring at his boots.

 

Some voice in her head warned Sansa to proceed carefully. Something larger than what she ever dreamed could happen this evening seemed to be occurring. “Well, I suppose it’s not often spoken of,” she said gently, “but of course they are. They have to be. Just as women are. We don’t start rutting as soon as we’re born.”

 

There was a sad twitch of a smile on his lips. “And what if your husband was green?” he asked in a voice so quiet Sansa almost misheard the question.

 

 _If your husband was green._ What in Seven Hells did that mean? He wasn’t green. He went to brothels for heavens sake! But, oh! Sansa’s eyes grew wide and her breath caught in her throat. No one ever said what he did there! But that didn’t make any sense! How could he possibly be untouched as she was?

 

“I-I don’t understand,” she babbled. “Are you saying?”

 

He kept his eyes on the floor. His boot kicked at the wooden beams while he tilted his head back and took down more wine.

 

“But! The girls!” she shouted. “They all say you go to the brothels!”

 

“I do,” he said flatly.

 

“Then I don’t understand.”

 

“I watch,” he confessed to the floor.

 

Sansa blinked and looked at the last dregs of her wine. Then she drank it all down and held her cup out to him to be refilled. He obliged her silent request.

 

“Watch who?” Sansa asked. All sense of embarrassment or propriety had flown out the window.

 

“One woman. Touch herself. Sometimes two together. Then I come back here,” he explained. “It works better for everyone.”

 

Sansa’s head began to swim. From both the wine and the new information she’d been given. He was a virgin! It seemed impossible. Preposterous even, but if there was one thing she could say with certainty, it was that her husband wasn’t a liar. Not to her. Besides, what was there to be gained by a man in confessing to being green as spring grass?

 

“But _why_? How?” she asked before she could stop herself. The thought of him being just as unskilled as she was mind boggling. He didn’t answer her question. His brow and eyes scowled while his mouth set itself into a grim line that usually preceded anger.

 

“Alright, that’s not important,” Sansa backtracked, laying a hand on his wrist. She should slow down. This must have been a nightmare for him to admit to. He needed acceptance not questions from her.

 

But his ire had been triggered. “You want to know why?” he spat at her. “The first whore cried and begged to be let free of me. I was thirteen and her not much older and she _screamed_ to be let out of the bargain.”

 

Sansa’s free hand picked at her small clothes nervously. He was walking through the doorway of confession whether she liked it or not. She felt dreadful during these times, but after, when he had purged himself of his wretchedness and he realized she still stood beside him, they both felt more secure. This storm would pass as the others did, she told herself.

 

“You were thirteen? That’s still a boy,” she whispered, wincing at the thought. She knew some lads had a woman early, when they were fifteen or freshly a man at sixteen, but _thirteen_? It seemed too young in her mind.

 

“I didn’t buy her. She was bought for me.” He sucked at the last remains of his wine and then hurled the drained skin at the wall. “After that I didn’t pay for one till I was sixteen. First one left an impression.”  Sansa’s heart fell for the boy he’d been and the rejection he must have felt. “The second one drank to prepare herself and threw it all up on my boots.”

 

Sansa cringed. “I’m not them,” she said worriedly. The worst she’d done was cry when he forced her to look at him. But that was ages ago when she was first starting to understand him and just a girl besides.

 

“No, you’re not,” he agreed, looking at the wall in a disgusted way. “And that’s all the more problem.”

 

“Why?” she asked carefully.

 

He turned to her sharply, grabbing her by the chin with one enormous hand as he’d done before. Bringing his face down to hers there was barely room for a three fingers to fit between them. To her credit, Sansa didn’t pull back or cry; she matched his stare and waited. He wouldn’t hurt her and she silently vowed not to hurt him. His breathing went shallow and shaky. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the oil lamp from the table and brought it close to their faces.

 

“Look in my eyes and say what you see,” he ordered.

 

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Sansa quickly reacted. “I see anger and fear maybe? Sadness and -“

 

“Not what you want to see, girl! What’s there! Right in front of you,” he snarled.

 

“I . . . “ Sansa trialed off, not comprehending his meaning. But she played the question back in her mind through his way of understanding. And then she saw herself reflected in his eyes. “I see me,” she breathed. “I see my face.”

 

“Aye,” he said, putting the lamp back with a loud bang and releasing her chin. “And you think I could stand to see this bloody carcass in a woman’s eyes? You think I could bear to see it in yours? When I’m on top of you? Having to watch a monster take something as pretty as you?”

 

“But,” Sansa said, frustrated when nothing else came to mind. There weren’t any words she knew to try and heal the pain he carried. If she were an experienced woman herself, she might have known how to handle him better. They were at a stalemate; his mettle abandoning him when faced with a bride and her knowledge sorely lacking when it came to bedding a man.

 

Sandor’s entire frame hunched over, desolate and dejected. Then he spoke quietly. “It’s not just the face you know. There’s more. A man doesn’t survive battles as long as I have without taking marks to his body. There’s a toe missing from frostbite. And do you know what forty lashes does to a man’s back? It’s still half raw. It _oozes_ sometimes. You think I could ever cover you in this filth and live with myself?”

 

Biting the inside of her cheek, Sansa forced herself not to cry. Tears weren’t going to help him. He hated her tears and he’d only misinterpret them now.  Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an answer. The gleam of a candle bounced off of his armor. On top of the armor, lay a pile of cloth. Those he used as protection from the rub in the creases of his armor; long strips of brown cloth that he would wind around his joints. An idea came to her. He didn’t want to be seen by her eyes or his own. There was a solution to be had if he’d trust her one more time. He had always preferred action to words anyway.

 

Sansa rose and placed her cup on the table. Pulling a length of cloth from his mountain of armor, she padded back to him. Kneeling, she placed herself between his spread legs and the wall in front of her. With her back to him, she lifted the cloth to her eyes, folding it over to render her blind. Holding each end of the cloth behind her head, she adjusted it within her hair.

 

“Will you tie it?” she asked, shaking the cloth loosely in her hands. There was a long pause, during which nothing happened.

 

“Little Bird?” she heard him speak. His voice was tired and tight; the rasp in his throat heightened by what she was sure was confused tension. Then it struck her. She’d heard that voice before. He was _frightened_. A tiny bird was causing a beast on the edge of madness to lie down and whine with worry. The thought might have brought her humor if it wasn’t so sad.

 

“I can’t see with it on. I promise. Not at all,” Sansa explained. “No sight, no fear. For either of us.”

 

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, while taking the cloth from her hands.

 

“I want to,” she assured, allowing him to bind the strip of linen tightly around her head. He didn’t catch and pull her hair within the knot. She spun on her knees, reaching her hands out blindly to search for the bed. His hand caught her wrist and guided her over to the furs. Getting her feet under her, she took a few steps and sat where she thought was beside him.

 

“You can’t see anything?” His tone was disbelieving and untrusting.

 

“Not a thing,” she answered. Sansa felt cool air pass over her face. He was waving a hand in front of her, she realized. She waited for him to convince himself of the truth. Next there was warm breath on her cheek.

 

“Nothing?” he asked and Sansa grinned at how close his voice sounded. If she leaned forward an inch or two they could kiss.

 

“Nothing,” she told him again. The air on her cheek was gone and she pouted.

 

Then something struck her in the stomach. A solid weight plowed into her core, knocking the breath from her and almost sending her backwards. It was him, but not a fist as she might have feared from another man. Her hands were full of his hair, her arms encircling massive shoulders. Sandor’s arms came around her middle and squeezed like a ring of solid iron. Sansa’s stomach flipped. An instinct to touch kicked in that she had felt once before with him.

 

Digging her fingers into his hair down to his scalp, she heard him take in a shuddering breath. He had his face pressed tightly into her teats. But he didn’t kiss or lick or suckle as she imagined men must like to do. He only rubbed his face across the softness of her flesh and trembled in her arms. Kissing his hair, she tried to soothe him, letting him do as he liked. She could feel a scratchy sort of itch from the jaw line of his good side and the bumps of the marred side as well, smooth and inhumane feeling; like melted and cooled wax from a candle. Sansa found it didn’t repulse her. It was a part of him after all. And different though he might be, she loved him as surely as any normal man. Letting her hand drift slowly down, her finger tips made contact with his scars. There was a hitch in his breathing when she did so. Then a trickle of wetness between her breasts. Would there come a day when he wouldn’t weep when she touched him?

 

“Sandor?” she questioned gently. He shuddered, the arms at her ribs crushing her. It felt odd to hold a man in such a style; motherly in a way. Sansa could recall cradling Bran and Rickon as infants in a similar manner. Sandor said his mother had died. How long ago was that? If he’d never had the courage to take this comfort from a woman before, was there ever a time he could recall being held? Sansa’s body swayed while tears continued to fall on her chest. She hummed a nameless tune, nothing more than notes she spontaneously strung together to calm the man she now called husband. She wasn’t his mother but, she supposed, a wife had to act like one from time to time.

 

Though he had rolled his eyes about it as he got older, her brother Robb had never once asked their mother to stop giving him affection. Her father had always looked exhausted when he returned from his travels until her mother embraced and kissed him. Then there was a spark in his eyes and strength in his stance once again. When was the last time Sandor could remember such a thing?  Could he at all? Her own father was only gone from Catelyn for months at a time. How many years had Sandor been waiting for someone’s arms to welcome him home? And why did it feel as if hers were the only ones to ever offer him the chance?

 

After a time, Sandor’s shaking stopped. He cleared his throat and shoved himself up out of her arms. Sansa felt a sharp, shooting pain of loss.

 

“Bloody pathetic,” she heard him mumble and then louder, “what am I to do with you?  You chose this.”

 

“I would have chosen you had you asked on your own,” she told the darkness in front of her.

 

He laughed once; a derisive sort of snarl. “That’s a lie,” he growled.

 

“It’s not,” she argued, sticking her chin out, daring him to push the issue.

 

“Do you want me to take you? Make a woman out of you?”

 

“If it pleases you.”

 

“Stop,” he warned. “No chirping. I asked what you wanted. I’ve done alright until now and I can keep on doing so. If you married me for the shield I am then say so.”  His voice shifted. It was back to that hesitant whisper of earlier. “’Don’t give me false hope.” 

 

Once more her hands sought out something in front of her without the sense of sight to guide them. She felt the material of his tunic fold between her fingers. “I want to learn,” she told him.

 

She felt him shift. Fast and forward until her lips were being kissed by his own. She yelped in surprise then smiled against his mouth. There was an immediate difference felt from any kiss in the past when Sandor caressed her lips. It sent sizzling trails of excitement down her throat to the pit of her stomach. Sansa felt her whole spine tingle, a quivering aliveness flowing through her veins. Her toes curled within her stockings. Then he pushed at her lip with his tongue of all things! Her lips moved and then his tongue was touching hers, swirling and rolling across all parts of her mouth. She tried her best to mimic his actions. Using her tongue, she made quick passes over his bottom lip and then moved her jaw to add pressure. This was kissing! It was far better than anything her books had tried to express with mere words. There were no words for the queer feeling that throbbed between her legs and set her heart to soaring.

 

 

Together they fell onto the bed. Lying flat on her back, he hovered over her. They continued on with kissing, eliciting happy noises from her and satisfied rumbles from him. Rolling over top of her, Sandor moved to his side but kept a hand pressed firmly on her belly, bidding her to stay in place. She thought he would undress her. But he stroked his palm down her body from her throat to the space just above her heat. Over and over again. He was _petting_ her. Moving on to her hair, she purred at the pleasure his fingers brought her, the blindfold giving her courage to enjoy the sensations coursing through her body. He pulled lightly at a lock, twisted a curl around his finger, and fisted handfuls of it. Then he went back to the slow passes over her body. The nails in the boards, that held her boxed dreams inside her, creaked as they loosened. Sansa’s body felt heavy with wine and relaxation, and before long, she slept.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3 - Awakenings

In the morning, Sansa woke first. She liked to sleep on her back but she’d been turned to her side in her sleep. Her vision was dark and she had no way of knowing it was just before dawn. Her eyes were still closed and covered by a cloth that smelled spiced and masculine. It made her think of the woods; the rough feel of bark on trees and sunlight filtering down through bright orange leaves. There was a large, warm body behind her and a fur over top of the both of them. Sandor snored into her hair with his arm around her waist like a belt. Shifting her hips a few inches to find a more comfortable position, she felt him stir behind her. His breathing changed. Sansa knew he was awake and waiting on her reaction to finding herself in bed with him.

 

“Where were you?” she asked. “The other night. You never came back.”

 

“The stables,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

 

“Don’t do that again,” she told him, squeezing his hand for emphasis. “Stay. I’ll wear the blindfold as long as you like.”

 

 

He pulled her body flush against his own and let out a great sigh. “Be quiet,” he rumbled. “Want to sleep.”  It seemed a gruff way to dismiss her but then she felt a kiss in her hair before he started to snore again.

 

Sandor, surprisingly, listened to her. He stayed. It was a treasure he wasn’t aware he’d given to her. At night he joined her in bed and in the morning she woke, securely held within his arms. He dressed in the room, though he made her look out the window or keep the blindfold on while he did so. After, he would go fetch water for the basin and then went for food while she sponged at herself and dressed for the day. Sansa tried to tell him she could do each task on her own, but he pointedly ignored her, shrugging and waiting until she’d taken a bite of the food he brought. Then he would give her a nod and leave her to her own devices for the day.

 

Three days after her idea of the blindfold and they still hadn’t coupled as men and women usually did. Sansa found she didn’t entirely mind. There seemed to be so little happiness in his life. The chance at giving him some piece by piece filled Sansa with a caring sense of protectiveness. There were ways for her to fight for him as he did for others. This was something to be savored and shared between the two of them. When the time was right, they would be one.

 

In the evenings, she would help with his armor. There were short, uncertain conversations between them. They knew better than to broach the subject of families or anything to do with Joffrey. They talked about mundane things instead; the weather, or the latest gossip from the sewing room. He feigned interest on his better days and told her be silent on the others. Every night she brought him the strip of cloth from his armor and each time he tied a secure knot in it. It was a silent invitation and agreement. They explored all he wanted until she would eventually slip off into slumber.

 

On the fourth night he swapped the rough, brown cloth from his armor for a scarf of blue silk. Where it came from, he never said, but she was sure that it hadn’t been in his room days before. It did just as well a job at hiding him from her vision as the linen but was more comfortable over her eyes.

 

With her sight blocked, Sansa could hear, smell, taste and _sense_ things with Sandor that eluded the both of them when she could look at him clearly. He didn’t change, or become something different. There were parts of him that were only visible when she was blind. He kept her clothed; never undressing her fully and he didn’t take off more than his boots. Sometimes, he would pull the first few ties on her small clothes open, revealing the tops of her breasts to him. Then she could feel calloused fingertips stroke her skin in a way that made her think coupling with him couldn’t possibly hurt her.

 

Sandor’s attentions made her feel as if nothing would harm her; as if, he too cared for her. Whether that was his intent or not, she wasn’t certain, but the first steps towards love that were quickly overtaking her heart couldn’t be stopped. She tried to reciprocate and give him the same warmth in return. He pulled back from her often. She could get away with touching his hands, his arms and the very tops of his shoulders. If she pushed beyond those boundaries he moved her hands off of him entirely.

 

Frustrated, one night, she shoved a hand down between their bodies to make a grab for his breeches. She only wished to make him feel wanted. How was a wife to express such desire if he never let her touch him? Many times he had settled her hips against the space between his legs and what Sansa thought she should feel, if the tongue wagging of other women could be trusted, didn’t seem to be present at all. She was puzzled and wanted to seek out answers on her own. The breath he sucked in sounded like a hiss when she made contact with something. What is was, Sansa truly didn’t know. It felt like nothing more than cloth and ties to her. But there must have been something. Sandor’s entire frame jerked back from her and he held both her wrists up above her head. His breathing was angry, and when he finally let go of her she didn’t dare move again for the rest of the night.

 

The following evening, she tried a different approach. Keeping her hands away from him, she moved when he kissed her. They were lying on their sides, his hand on her hip and her arms folded between them, her palms flat against her own body. A lingering touch of his mouth ceased when they naturally paused for breath. And that’s when she moved her lips to his throat. She could feel the muscles there clench, making his Adam’s apple bob against her cheek. The tip of her tongue licked a thin line across a vein she could feel pulsing beneath her lips. A sigh of pleasure caught and broke in his throat. He tasted like he smelled; visions of crisp autumn days running through her mind. Cider and cedar, the tingle in the nose from cold weather and the sting in the eyes when you dared to look at the sun; that was the taste of her husband.

 

There wasn’t much talk during their tentative sessions together. Nothing more than instructions from him for her to move an arm, roll to her side, or turn her head. Usually she said nothing, letting her moans and sighs speak for her. But she couldn’t stop a comment from slipping past her mouth that night. “You taste” -she licked him again between words- “luscious.”  Sansa felt sinful. But there was a rightness to the sinful feeling. This was her husband; a man she respected, trusted and loved. Their actions were to be enjoyed, not shunned. “Sandor, I want to taste more,” she hummed, dizzy with a craving for him. She gasped at the bruising kiss he offered her. Then she felt his hand at her teats as he yanked her small cloths down her chest, ripping a few of the ties in the process. He buried his face between her breasts again, his chest heaving. He didn’t weep when her hands found his scars. This time he trembled only and it was him that fell asleep in her arms.

 

She woke in the morning, ten days since their first kiss, on her side with him settled at her back. Rubbing at her face first, she then pulled the blindfold from her eyes. He seemed fine with her waking and removing it while they lay in bed for a few moments in the morning, always with her facing away from him. One of his arms was around her and a hand was at her exposed breast. She yawned and stretched, feeling her rib cage expand with the deep inhalation. Sandor’s hand squeezed her flesh while a sound came from him she’d never heard before. It sounded as if he were in pain. Hips bucked behind her while she felt something hard press into the supple mound of her bottom.

 

“Gods,” he gasped into her hair, pushing that same bar of hardness into her again. Was that?  Was he?

 

“Sandor? Are you alright?” she tried, uncertain if he was experiencing pleasure or not.

 

“Don’t move,” he groaned, the hand at her teats moving down to pin her hips against him. “Please, don’t move.”  _Please_? It was an order and a request all at once. Sansa’s heart sped up. She’d never heard him use that word before. Ever. To anyone.

 

She nodded her head to reassure him and marveled at what was happening. Grinding himself against her, she could feel _him_. It was longer than her hand though she couldn’t tell how thick. It felt strong. Like the rest of him. He panted into her hair, gripping her small clothes in his fist. Stunted grunts caught in his throat making him sound both irritated and focused. She placed a hand overtop his fist, rubbing circles into it with her thumb. The urge to turn and help ease his ache was unbearable but she stayed still as he asked. There was trust building between them and she would rather die inside her own growing lust than shatter it.

 

One of his legs hooked over her own, while he writhed behind her. She was well and truly trapped while the bar of heat at her bottom became harder still, almost sharp, and he moaned helplessly in her ear. Sansa lifted her free arm, up and over her shoulder to find his scalp. Scraping her nails through his hair, he cried out once, twice while his body went into some sort of spasm. He gulped for air, tensed all around her and uttered a shout so loud she grew worried.  Then he was shaking, trying to regain his breath. Every muscle in his body seemed to sag while his ragged breathing slowed. There were kisses on her shoulder and every time he gave her one he whispered, “Little Bird.”  

 

He made her put the blindfold back on while he washed and dressed. After, he told her she could take it off, as he put his armor on. He looked at her as if she weren’t real. He didn’t smile at her with his lips; Sandor Clegane rarely smiled and when he did, it was usually a mocking gesture not a happy one. But his eyes smiled that morning. Sansa was sure of it. There was a tentative hunger within them. Before he left the room for the day he pulled one of her curls between his fingers.

 

That night, he was in their room when she came back from the baths, this time in a long sleeping gown. His shift had either ended early or he’d found some reason to escape his duties. He held her blindfold in his hands eagerly, causing her to smile bashfully. Patting the leftover dampness from her neck with a cloth, she then sat on the bed and beckoned him to her.

 

Sandor’s lips were at her ear as soon as the knot had been fastened at the back of her skull. Sansa laughed happily at the change that had come over him. The fear was melting; trust and love were solidifying. That night he kissed and lapped at her everywhere. Places she didn’t know a man would even want to! He spread her fingers apart, licking in between them. He rolled her over onto her back, lifted her gown and put his fingers down into the cleft in her bottom. Sansa’s face burned with shame and pleasure. The blindfold was pure genius on her part, she decided. It allowed him to overcome his insecurities and granted her the freedom to cast her inhibitions aside. The combination was becoming nothing short of breathtaking.

 

Once more he turned her onto her back. From that point on Sansa lost track of time and herself. Sandor pulled at her gown till it had been lifted up and over her head. Naked and cold, she pressed her hands over her breasts, biting at her lip. A hand was felt at her hip; powerful, heated, yet safe.  

 

“You’re beautiful,” she heard him utter. His voice was low but there was no rasp. “And cold,” he laughed, as her bare skin prickled and downy hair stood on end. He was gone from her for a few minutes. The sound of tinder catching and the smell of smoke filled the room. Sansa shivered with anticipation, hearing fabric rustle as he undressed. Would he bed her once he’d warmed the room? Or was he only looking and touching as he seemed to like to do?

 

The bed dipped when he returned to her. He pulled at her wrists, and when her teats were uncovered his mouth was immediately upon them. Sansa gasped, tangling her fingers into his hair, clutching at him while a swell of wildly new sensations came over her. His tongue slid over a nipple, his teeth gently scraping at each one in turn. Then he suckled at her left breast, filling his mouth with as much of her as possible. It sent a searing line straight down to her core. Each time his mouth pulled at her, the throb between her legs grew more urgent. Sounds came out of her. Wails of rapture, not sadness, and drawn out moans. She could feel him smile while he continued to suck at her.

 

Her fingers traveled out of his hair. Down to his shoulder blades, where she explored lightly. There were rough patches there, and viscous fluid, trapped in crags made of flesh, but she ignored her findings and thought only on his pleasure and hers. The time for sympathy over those wounds could wait. He had begun to moan an unsteady medley with her. Her teat slipped from his mouth and then he seemed to be everywhere. One hand at her neck and his tongue smoothing over her belly. There were fingers in the curls surrounding her womanhood. Sandor’s mouth halted when he pushed a single finger between her folds.

 

“Oh!” Sansa cried out in surprise. It was indescribable. His touch seemed to swirl all over her but it hadn’t left that one small spot. Her whole body came alive and shuddered beneath him. Sandor pulled at her legs, drawing them up close to his shoulders and shifting the weight of her lower body to her feet. He grunted into her belly and just when she thought there was no possible way to feel anything more tremendous he _put his mouth on her_!  Sansa hissed through her teeth, gasping for air. There was an ache so deep in her lower belly it hurt. Her woman’s heat crashed with wave after wave of pleasure and it didn’t stop! She thought she’d die if he continued. He pressed harder at her with his lips and she yelped, pulling at his hair.

 

He raised his head from her folds, panting and gripping her calf with one hand. There was a wet, rapid, squelching sound from between her legs where he crouched. The sound slowed as he spoke. “You want me to stop?”

 

“No, I, ah” she tried to find the sense in words once again. “It hurts in a way. But it’s also good. Intense. Like I’ll break if you keep on going. Does that make sense?”

 

“Mmm, aye,” he hummed, placing his face on her upper thigh and rubbing his stubbled cheek against the inside of it. “You won’t break, Little Bird. I promise.” His fingers traced down her belly and back to her core. He was gentler this time, massaging her in slow strokes that had her short of breath again and twisting her hands into the furs around her. “That’s it, Little Bird,” he encouraged. “That’s right.” He brought his tongue back to her and used it to flick across her softness. Sansa was sure she’d lost all control over her body. She bucked against his mouth, the waves of pleasure back and unrelenting. And then a moment seemed to freeze. She could feel her pulse rippling through her heat and her pleasure scorching through her heart. She gasped and then cried out as something overtook her. Something brilliant and hot and rocking. Sandor licked at her until tears had damped the blindfold and she begged him to stop.

 

“You’re alright,” he soothed overtop her. The back of his hand trailed down her chest and stomach. The strange, wet sound was back. Sandor’s breathing was labored. She could tell he was on his knees and shaking. Sansa felt new. Was this what he felt when he’d been behind her earlier in the day? Her hands roamed over her body of their own accord, curious to see if they could tell the difference she felt inside. When she felt the slick moisture between her own legs Sandor cried out her name. He fell over her, catching himself with one hand and letting his forehead smack into her breastbone. He shuddered and moaned, then cursed and she felt a wet splatter of warmth on her belly.

 

“Seven Hells,” he breathed, another small splash of liquid landing on her hip. Sansa’s hand left her heat to touch the sticky substance on her. She rubbed it between her fingers. It was thick and almost oily. Had he spilled? Was this his seed?

 

He seemed to read her mind. “Aye, that’s a mess I’ve made of you,” he grumbled. He tried to rise off of her but collapsed beside her instead. She giggled. Somewhere inside her mind, she thought perhaps she should be more embarrassed but another part of her wanted to dance on the rooftops. She felt older. Somehow more of a woman and he had yet to place himself inside her. He had curled around her legs, his head at her middle. Her hands petted his hair. One of the sheets grazed over her belly as he lazily cleaned her. The room smelled of embers, sweat and something unfamiliar. Something heavy with musk and salt, and not at all unpleasant.

 

“That was glorious,” she finally said, still beaming at what they had shared. “Can we do that again?” 

 

Sandor laughed until he coughed and shook. “Anytime you wish it, Little Bird,” he told her. “Just give a man a minute to catch his breath.”


	4. Chapter 4 - Healing

The first part of her plan was to make drapes. For five days, Sansa hurried through her morning toiletries, allowing her to spend an hour or two on them before she was expected to work. She spent a week’s worth of silver on the thickest, darkest fabric to be had. Heavy, black wool that she doubled over on itself to form something similar to blankets. Once the drapes had been fashioned, she’d given a kitchen boy a few coppers to help her hang them. That night, Sandor had cast a questioning look towards the windows.

 

“It will keep the morning light from your eyes,” she explained, hoping the half truth would satisfy him. “And I wanted to make the room seem more comfortable. You like them, don’t you?” she said prettily, smiling and offering the blindfold to him. He gave her a look that said he knew she was up to something but didn’t care to bother with finding out the details just yet. If he had any serious objections, he didn’t give voice to them. She had made it through the first step and in the morning it would be time for the second.

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Sansa’s thumb nail scratched at one of the painted butterflies on her wooden chest. She was sitting, cross legged on the floor in a corner, facing the chest and a wall. It was early morning and Sandor was dressing behind her. His trust in her was still fragile, thin as the first layer of ice in winter, but he knew she wouldn’t turn while he changed. Not without his permission. Her curtsies kept her bound to polite protocols and he _knew_ it. She had asked for it several times and he had yet to grant her request. Her want to see his bare skin didn’t have to do with desires and passion. Well, not _entirely_. Sansa’s main reason for wishing to see him was to get a look at the state of his back.

 

It was assessment of damage she was after, not gawking at his physique. But, if she were being honest with herself, the latter did call to her. During their unique love makings, she’d been able to gain more access to his body; the limitations he set for her inquisitive hands expanding with each passing day. She ran her fingers through thick hair on his chest and found flat nipples that felt different from her own. She learned that licking the hollow of his throat could make _him_ purr, and her toes had discovered more hair on his legs. When he lost himself seeking relief with his own hand, she could run a palm down his back, trying to visualize what she was feeling while he was distracted.

 

He was right. It oozed at times. Other times it felt dry, cracked and chapped. Sansa watched him in the evenings when he removed his armor. She saw the twitch near his eye when he twisted in the wrong direction; the way he bit his lip when his brigandine fell from his shoulders. Sometimes, his entire body started for the smallest of moments. And Sansa, most assuredly, had observed the stains of blood and fluid that seeped through the fabric of his tunic by the end of the day.

 

A wife shouldn’t let her husband suffer so. A good wife _wouldn’t_ let her husband continue to endure as he was, she scolded herself. He wore nothing, to her knowledge, between him and his armor besides his tunic. It wasn’t enough. One layer of fabric wasn’t able to keep the armor from rubbing his wounds raw over and over again. Day after day, the course fabric of his tunic became abrasive against his sensitive flesh. He wasn’t giving it a proper chance to heal and she could scarcely imagine the amount of pain the open sores must be causing him.

 

Sansa sat herself up tall, making her spine a straight, solid line, like her husband did to gather inner strength. She could hear him moving behind her. The familiar sounds of his routine suggested he’d stripped and was working on getting into a new set of breeches. This was going to be a battle between the two of them and one she intended to win. Lifting the lid to her trunk, she began to pull out items she’d collected over the last week.

 

She’d been to one of the younger maesters on the grounds of the Red Keep. Explaining her situation, the scholar had given her large rolls of cloth for binding and several different ointments. One had to be specially made and took several days while they waited on the ordered ingredients to come from a local apothecary. Sansa frowned. She knew better than most Sandor’s distaste for maesters and ointments. It was probably why he hadn’t sought out a remedy on his own. It was up to her then, to see to his needs.

 

“Sandor,” she began, forcing her voice to stay level. Turning her head to the side, she gave him her profile but kept her eyes on the floor.

 

“What’s all that?” he asked. There was already doubt and a hint of imagined betrayal in his voice. Sansa sighed. This was going to be difficult and didn’t have to be. If he would just listen and let her help, he would see that light wasn’t an enemy to him where she was concerned. Truth was best, she thought; be quick and honest with him.

 

“I went to the maester and asked for supplies to treat your back,” she said.

 

“No.”

 

It wasn’t a question or a comment up for discussion. It was a statement with simmering fury behind it. Sansa paid him and his tone no notice. “I made the curtains to keep most of the light from the room. I can’t wear the blindfold and work properly, I’m sorry, I can’t. I need some light to do this.”

 

“I said no,” he rasped, letting his voice scrape out a warning. He _did_ sound beastly. Sansa shivered but continued on. He wouldn’t hurt her. Sandor would bark ferociously and try to scare her into doing what he wanted but she knew she had to push forward. It was for his own good. Her mother had made all of her children do things they didn’t want to that had made them better in the end. Even her father, at times, was made to sit still under Catelyn’s ministrations. It had always made Sansa giggle into her cupped hands whenever she caught her father on the receiving end of a reprimand or being spoon fed one of Maester Luwin’s concoctions by Catelyn’s hand. But now that she was a wife herself, Sansa saw the love behind such lectures and actions. That was a wife’s duty to her household. And Sandor ought to have the same nurturing treatment from her.

 

“My mother,” Sansa spoke, “she used to make us swallow horrible tonics when we were small. They tasted bitter and Bran almost vomited at least once a week trying to keep them down, but they helped us grow strong and kept sickness at bay. None of us perished young, because she encouraged us to do something unpleasant.”

 

“You’re not my bloody mother.”

 

Sansa could _hear_ the face he was making at her. “That’s right,” she agreed. “I’m your wife. A wife tends to both her children and her husband even when they don’t want it. They do what is best for their family.”

 

“Your family’s dead, if you’ve forgotten,” he said harshly. He was trying to cut deep with his words. Months ago it might have made her cry, but she understood now the crueler his words became, the more frightened he was of her.

 

“You’re my family now, Sandor, and I’m going to do this,” she said, trying her best to use an authoritative tone. “This is going to happen. You can accept it and stand there or close the curtains and take some comfort in the dark. It’s your decision. Or, you can beat me, tie me to a chair, I don’t know! But I’m not going to stop, do you hear me? You deserve this. You deserve a wife that wishes to see you well. I’m going to count to ten and then turn around. One. Two.”

 

“Bugger that!” he bellowed. “And bugger you!”

 

He was furious. He hadn’t cursed this much in front of her since she’d first been brought to King’s Landing. Stay the course, Sansa told herself. 

 

“Three.”

 

Their chair crashed into a wall. There was a snap when one of the legs broke and Sansa flinched at the sound.

 

“Four.”

 

“Damn you! Stop!”

 

“Five.”

 

“Stupid girl! You think you’ll put that on and I’ll be a prince?”

 

“No, you’ll be exactly the same. Only you’ll feel better and we can both go about our day. Six.”

 

“Fucks sake! Stop counting!”

 

“Seven.”

 

He continued cursing behind her, the sound of curtains being shut roughly was heard as the light in the room dimmed. Sansa smiled. “Eight.”

 

“I said stop. The bloody curtains are shut, stubborn woman.”  

 

Sansa stood, clutching her assortment of items in a bundle at her breast, and ending her count down. This was probably going to earn her days without kisses but it would be worth it. He was against a wall, turned away from her, with his arms up and his hands spread flat near his head. The room had taken on a creeping, anxious feeling. She felt like a mouse aware of the cat watching it from a corner. If she moved too quickly the cat would pounce and that would be the end of all she’d worked so hard for over the past weeks.

 

His stance made Sansa uneasy. He looked as if he were expecting another beating. “You can put your arms down,” she told him. “Sit, if you like.” Sandor shook his head and Sansa rolled her eyes. He was being unreasonable, trying to be a nuisance and persuade her to quit. There wasn’t much to see. An outline of his shape and shadows over his back were all the details she could make out. His fears were unfounded though Sansa knew that didn’t make them any less real. “Would you _please_ sit?” she tried. “It will make it easier for me. You’re too tall for me to reach everywhere.” He didn’t move. “It will take less time,” she added.

 

That got his attention. The less time he had to spend uncovered, the better, in his mind, as Sansa had suspected. The chair was lying tipped over and useless, with one of its legs missing somewhere in the dark. Sandor took to the bed, sitting and keeping his face from her. Sansa tried to be careful but stubbed her toe on the broken chair leg, causing her to cry out in pain.

 

“Serves you right,” Sandor growled.

 

“That was unkind,” Sansa snapped. “I’m doing this because I care for you, Sandor. Not to mock or hurt you. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have made the curtains. I wouldn’t do any of this. I would have let you continue on with a half rotted back. _That_ would be hateful and I don’t hate you.” She dropped her bundle on the bed near his right side as she continued; keeping her mother’s stern, matter-of-fact way of speaking in her mind. “You don’t have to thank me. You don’t have to happy about this. But don’t be cruel. Hold your tongue and let me work.”

 

Sansa crawled over the furs to kneel behind him. She cautiously laid a palm on him to feel what she had to work with. The space she touched seemed to be free from sores or fluid. That was good. Hopefully, she could prevent any from forming during the day. Reaching out for one of the little pots of ointment, she took the lid from the one closest to her and then another, looking for the right one by scent. The one she needed was a numbing agent that smelled strongly of mint. It sent a rush of cold sensations up her nose and made her feel as if she could breathe easier. That one went on first. He jumped in his seat when her fingers smoothed over his skin. Spreading the paste liberally and carefully, she paid close attention to his reactions.

 

“This one should feel cool. It will help with the pain. The next one would sting otherwise. It should last a few hours. I can do it again in the afternoon, before I see Ada, if you like?” Sansa didn’t expect an answer and wasn’t surprised when he chose not to speak. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

 

He shook his head. “No.”

 

Sansa closed the lid of the first jar and waited. “It should breath. Let that have a minute to take effect and I’ll put one more on. The next one will help the skin heal and protect it during the day. Then I’ll bind your chest and you can go. I know you don’t like this. I’m sorry.”

 

There was a terrible silence for several minutes. Then she heard him sigh. “It’s bad,” he said simply.

 

“It will get better,” she assured him, taking up the second jar. She spread it over him as quickly as she could. “This evening I’ll wash it for you and there’s one more ointment to wear overnight. It will keep the skin supple so it won’t feel so tight. The sores will heal during the day and at night we’ll work to keep the skin smooth.”

 

“We?” he breathed. Sansa wondered if she was meant to hear the word.

 

“Yes, we,” she repeated, moving in front of him with a long strip of cloth folded in her hands. “We’re partners now, you and I. Here, hold this,” she instructed, pressing a corner of the fabric to his shoulder. He did as she asked. Sandor stared at her and Sansa wished she could see his eyes properly. All that could be seen was a white flash now and again. She had to keep leaning towards him in order to reach around him fully, winding the cloth in an “X” over his shoulders and across his chest and back.  Each time it was an embrace, their cheeks would touch and she heard his teeth clicking; a nervous habit she’d noticed over the past few days. Chewing or picking at his nails meant he was uncomfortable and possibly angry. Shrugging was indifference. Grinding or clicking his teeth meant he was anxious and at a loss. A man less brave might panic but Sandor could make himself stone if he had to.

 

“Would you stand, please?” she asked, and when he did so, she began circling him with the last few yards of cloth. “There!” she exclaimed, tucking the end of the cloth into the folds around her husband’s torso. She patted his side gently. “All finished. Thank you.” Then she went to the window and opened the drapes, keeping her eyes focused on the scenery outside. It had been a rough start but didn’t seem to have been too painful for either of them by the end. She heard cloth and metal behind her.

 

“Can you get your own food today?” Sandor’s voice cracked at the end of his question. Sansa felt the flutter in her stomach that meant she’d misjudged him. She turned, knowing he was dressed, and found him with his hand already on the doorknob. Hair hung over his face, keeping his eyes from her. She took too long in answering him. Glancing up from under his hair, Sansa saw water in his eyes and she thought of the night of the Blackwater. Sometimes she forgot that something small and normal to her became large and earth shattering to him. She nodded, not trusting her own voice. He didn’t need tears before his work; from her or him. They parted ways without another word.

 

Sansa thought long and hard while she worked that day. She remembered happier times with her family, before Joffrey and marriage proposals. Before Lady and Ice in Payne’s hands. She had over a decade of happy memories to look back on. Even the more exasperating ones, when Jon and Arya would tease her, were pleasant in their own way. Sansa knew she would give almost anything to see either one of them again, alive and smiling. And baby Rickon! Sansa felt tears well up in her eyes thinking of the precious babe of house Stark. Sansa had often practiced being a mother with Rickon, singing him to sleep and rocking him when he was ill. Old Nan had shown her how to bathe and clothe him.

 

She remembered her father kissing her forehead and her mother teaching her to sew. She recalled sneaking into the kitchens with Bran for pastries and Robb carrying her on his back. Now she was a woman and all of them gone; dead or missing. She knew what both happiness and sorrow were.

 

Sandor didn’t know the difference. Not fully. She’d been blessed with eleven years of goodness and his life had dissolved when he was six. From the scattered memories he shared with her and his reactions to her gentle way, it was clear he simply didn’t understand kindness nor recognize love. It was another duty that she, as his wife, was responsible for. Could she take on the challenge? Could the dog be made to lick the hand of compassion or would he forever bite at it? The look he had given her as he left their room made her feel small and childlike; like the times he yelled at her before the night of the Blackwater. She thought her life had been tragic? It was shameful to even think it when comparing her story to his.

 

They might both know what misery was but the wounds of his soul had been festering for far longer than hers. Each of them had dark pasts to draw from. Each had a hole that needed filled inside them. The difference was, his well of unhappiness ran deeper and had been dug years before she had even been born. Sansa didn’t know if she could help him climb his way up out of it, but she was willing to try.

 

Later that night, she cinched a robe tight around her small clothes and went to fetch warm water from the kitchens. Sandor would be done with his shift soon and she would keep her promise to tend to his back in the evening. Sansa hoped it would go better than their morning argument. Though she had ultimately won, it gave her no joy to cause him anger and sadness.

 

It was a fairly long walk from the kitchens back to their shared room. When she entered, Sandor was already there, out of his armor and sitting on the floor. There was an extra chair by the table and he was cursing at the broken one, set between his legs. Sansa put the basin down on the bedside table and peeked over his shoulder. He was trying to reattach the broken leg he’d snapped off earlier in the day. There was hair in his face and several small nails in between his lips. The trouble was, the nails were more like pins. They were short and delicate, so the wood wouldn’t split when they were driven inside it. Sandor’s hands were too big for the task. Holding a nail in place left no room to hammer it in. He kept hitting his thumb instead of the nail. And it was obviously infuriating him, as he called the chair yet another name.

 

“Let me,” she offered, reaching over his frame to place her hand above the one that held the nail. Cheek to cheek once again that day, he faltered for a moment, turning his head to look over her features. He did that often. Looked at her like he couldn’t decide if she could be trusted or not. Sansa sighed. It was going to be a long while before he grew confident that she wasn’t going to turn on him. “Let go,” she urged. “I’ll hold it. You hammer. My fingers are better suited for it. Just don’t smash them. I need them to work.” She was trying to tease, though the glower he gave her said he didn’t understand her playfulness.

 

“Don’t move and I won’t,” he said in his usual rasp, pulling his hand out from under hers. She saw his brow wrinkle with concentration as he tapped the hammer to the nail. He was being careful with her and Sansa grinned. “Move,” he instructed. The nail was set enough for her to remove her hand while he beat the nail in the rest of the way. Four more times they repeated the pattern, before he declared it repaired. Sansa lingered behind him, still bent over and hovering near his shoulder.

 

“I said it’s done,” he growled, bunching his shoulders up.

 

“Why don’t you like me near?” Sansa asked and immediately wished she could take the question back.

 

“What shit is that?” he barked. “I licked your cunt for an hour last night. If that’s not near, you tell me what is.”

 

Sansa kissed him, at the corner of his eye. The affectionate gesture made him draw back. Sansa stood, silently, while she chewed at her bottom lip. The point had been made and it seemed best to let it go. “I need to rinse your back and put the last ointment on,” she said, standing on tip toe to blow out all the candles in the room except for two near the bed. She rummaged through her trunk for the paste she was to use at night while he took his tunic off, mumbling under his breath.

 

When she turned, Sandor was on the bed, as far away from the candle’s light as he could manage. Like before, Sansa placed herself behind him. Though the candle light was a faint, glowing red it was more than what she’d had earlier with the black curtains drawn. This time, she could see the bandages and his frame in the flickering flames. She reached past him, for the basin of warm water and a rag, settling the two between her legs and his back. Slowly, she felt for the folded bit of cloth she’d tied off that morning. Winding the used, sullied cloth off of him, she paused when she got to the last layer. It was stuck to him with ointment, dried sweat and a few smears of blood.

 

Sansa dipped the rag into the water, making sure to thoroughly soak the spots that were clinging, before peeling the cloth away from his body. His breathing changed; uneven, ragged sighs escaping him.  “Am I hurting you?” she asked, concerned. He laughed at her. It was wet and there wasn’t a bit or humor in it. “I’m sorry,” she tired, frowning. “I don’t mean to. It will be over with soon.”

 

“You think anyone cares if a dog’s in pain?” he spat.

 

Sansa felt a rush of tears spring to her eyes. He sounded so definitive. Sansa’s heart ached, knowing he believed what he said. “I do,” she said, her voice trembling. The last of the bandage came free and Sansa tossed it onto the floor. She would take it, along with some of their other garments, to be laundered in the morning. She put a hand on his shoulder. “You must tell me if I hurt you,” she told him. “I’ll try to be more gentle.”

 

His entire frame shook with his laughter, but it was cold and manic. He was frightening her. It sounded like he’d gone mad.  Then he was springing up from the bed, causing water to splash from the basin onto the furs. Sansa quickly set it back on the table, sensing they were done with that particular chore for the night.

 

“The Little Bird is _sorry_ ,” he said mockingly. “No one’s sorry for kicking a dog!” Sansa stood and he rushed towards her. She backed up until her knees hit the bed and there was nowhere else to go. He held her face between his hands, compelling her to look him in the eye while he shouted at her. “No one’s sorry!” he yelled, shaking her head and then touching his forehead to hers. “You don’t do anything right!”

 

Sansa’s fear dissipated when she heard what he _wasn’t_ saying. Time behind the blindfold was teaching her how to read him better. It was true; he had probably never heard a sincere apology in his life. It was doubtful he’d ever been cared for or had someone focus on only his needs. She was doing _everything_ right and therefore she was wrong in his mind. She wasn’t the standard he was used to.

 

“I’m not the rest of them,” she whispered, placing her hands over top of his. The difference in size struck Sansa as a paradox of sorts. It seemed like he was the stronger; and he was, in body. But where he had more outward strength, she had more inner. And she would share it with him, gladly, if he would let her.  

 

They stared at one another; her with tears still shimmering in her eyes and he with fury in his. But the longer she kept blue locked on gray, the less anger there was. It faded and shifted. From anger to doubt and from doubt to tormented confusion; the feral look of an animal too scared to take the shelter it had been offered even though it knew it would perish otherwise.

 

His eyes shut and he pressed his forehead into hers urgently, not breaking their contact. It caused her pain but she didn’t cry out. It was as if he were physically trying to force the way he saw himself into her brain. Or perhaps he was trying to wrap his mind around her vision of him.

 

They were so close their breath was shared as they both gasped for air, caught somewhere between awareness and longing. Sansa felt heat in her belly, watching his rage dissolve under her touch. His hold on her face had loosened so she moved out of his grip to kiss at the spot on his throat she knew he liked best. It dawned on her that he was only in breeches and boots, and the warmth she felt turned into a tingling at her breast.

 

Sandor’s eyes flew open, blinking rapidly as he looked at the wall behind her. His lips parted and moved without speaking. Then she saw his eyes dart to the blindfold hung neatly over the headboard. Alright, she nodded internally. If that was what he needed now, she would give it.  Moving to Sandor’s side, Sansa kept one hand touching his arm, keeping the connection between them, as she reached for the blindfold. The look her gave her was one of pure, desperate gratitude when she offered it to him.

 

Blind once again, she felt Sandor behind her. He swept the hair from her neck and rested his head against her shoulder while he clumsily shuffled out of his boots. One arm looped around her middle as he used the other to work his breeches off. Sansa tried to move in his arms but he held her in place, pushing at her back. She fell forward on the bed, catching herself on her elbows, while she felt him, the hot shaft of his passion pressing itself into her bottom. The silks of her smallclothes prevented her from feeling him fully. She twisted, trying to reach around and touch him as well, but he growled at her, gripping her hips tightly in his hands.

 

Sansa suddenly felt anger. Why was he always the one to push and move her? He was her husband, just as she was his wife, and she had every right to touch him if she liked. Especially now, when he needed it most, whether he realized it or not. She fought harder to roll away, and he let go. She crawled her way up onto the bed, lying on her side, aware of his heavy breathing. Before she could speak, he was next to her, hands in her hair and his lips biting a path from her ear all the way down to her teats. Sansa tried to keep focused, waiting for the moment when he moved back up her body. Her hands smoothed over his chest. As he moved up, she moved down until there was a change in the hair on his body. It wasn’t the same as the hair on his chest. It was courser, thick as the furs around them and felt much like the curls that surrounded her own heat.

 

Sandor sucked in a breath and grabbed her wrists, like every other time she’d tried to move beyond this last barrier on his body. Tonight, she’d had enough, though she hardly knew where her fiery boldness was coming from.

 

“Stop it! I’m not a doll for you to pose,” she said surly, tearing her wrists from his grip. He ceased all movement and she could sense his uncertainty. “I’m a person. Your wife! I chose you, Sandor! I didn’t have to. But I did! I chose _you_.”

 

“Why?” His voice expressed his bafflement that she would do so. She could sense more questions lining up behind that one. Where was the proper place to start?

 

“What do you feel for me?” she asked, dodging his original query. If she could get him to admit, out loud, that he felt something other than hate and rage, then she could convince him of her own heart’s longings. They wanted the same things, deep down. Someone to share in life’s triumphs and tragedies. Someone to build a foundation with that could grow into a home. They both wanted to belong.

 

Sandor was silent. Sansa cupped his jaw in her hand, aware of his teeth grinding as he fought against speaking. “Give me something, Sandor,” she begged. “Anything. Something small.” Still there was no answer. She felt his head move back and forth, shaking and denying either of them a chance at moving forward. Sansa sighed regretfully. She should have let him be. It was all too much to try and work past in one day with him.

 

“It’s alright. You don’t have to speak. I know,” she told him quietly, trying to reassure him that she wasn’t angry. “I feel it, too.” He could remain silent but she wasn’t going to allow him to believe his feelings weren’t reciprocated.

 

“You don’t know,” his voice rasped. It held a sadness Sansa hadn’t yet heard. She pushed out her lower lip, disliking his statement. He brought her hand to the place above his heart, pressing her palm into his chest with force. “The Little Bird thinks she knows, but she doesn’t,” he continued. “What you think you feel? Take it, multiply it by ten. Then a hundred. Then you’ll know a dog’s feelings.”

 

Sansa’s chin trembled while she let tears leak from under her closed eyelids. He did love her! And not just a fair amount, but in a way that he’d described as being enormous and all encompassing. Those few sentences were equal to volumes of poetry when spoken from his mouth. Sansa’s own feelings were crushing at times; it was frightening how brutal love could be on the heart as it bore its way through to the center of her. And he was trying to tell her he felt more? The very idea was incredible and Sansa felt joy for the first time in years.

 

“One day,” she whispered, finding his lips and gifting him with a sweet kiss. “One day, I’m going to look at you, without this cloth between us and tell you that I love you.”

 

There was a piteous, gut wrenching sound from his throat; something near to a choked whimper, while she suckled at his bottom lip. “Listen to me,” she continued in a hushed tone, “I chose you, because with you I feel as if I matter. You’re cross and ill tempered, but that doesn’t make you a bad man. You make me feel wanted.”  She trailed a hand back down his body, stopping short near his navel. “You should feel wanted as well.”

 

He didn’t fight, or argue or even _breathe_. Sandor clenched his fists tightly in her hair and waited for her to claim him; to destroy him in the most exquisite way possible. Sansa let her touch drift lower until there was a brush of warm flesh to the back of her hand. It bobbed and smacked against her while Sandor exhaled loudly. Sansa reached out with the tips of fingers, ghosting over what she could only assume was his manhood. It _was_ a bar of iron! But it was also soft to the touch, like her own skin when she’d pampered herself with oils in her bath.  And hot! Hotter than any other place on him.

 

Sandor moaned at her graceful touch. She did little more than skim over the length of him with the pads of her fingers but he was already panting furiously. Exploring further, she discovered a pouch of loose flesh underneath the heat of his cock. “Fuck,” Sandor groaned slowly when she cupped it in her palm. Sansa was elated. He was allowing her to give something back and she smiled at her achievement. Her fingers passed over him again gently. He’d started to shiver beside her. Sansa bit at her lip. She’d never seen him bring pleasure to himself and didn’t know if there was something else to be done.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. One of his hands left her hair quickly, snagging a few knots in the process.  His hand moved hers, around his shaft, encircling his flesh with hers. Then he squeezed her hand and moved it up and down the entire length of him.

 

“Oh, Gods, fuck, S-Sansa,” he rambled, taking in deep breaths through his nose. The hand in her hair wove its way further through her curls and down to her scalp. He showed her how to stroke him with her hand three more times and then he let go. “More,” he gasped and Sansa willingly fulfilled his plea. She gripped hard at the curious piece of him in her palm, trying to match the tight hold he’d taught her. Sansa had him in hand for only a few moments before his hips jerked. “Gods,” he cried again, a sob clashing with bliss, while Sansa felt the familiar warmth of his seed flow over her hand.  The flesh in her palm pulsed and more liquid seeped from the tip of him. He shuddered harshly, pulling her hand from him.

 

Sandor took a moment to steady his breathing and then he was kissing her face. Everywhere! Nose, eyebrows, cheeks, lips and even the cloth covering her eyes. She kept her damp hand fisted between the two of them until he chuckled, rolling over her. There was the sound of water and then a wetted rag was in her hand. Once she had finished tidying herself, he took it from her and made sure he wasn’t the only one to feel pleasure that night.

 

……………………………………………………………………………………

 

Sansa woke gasping. There was a stabbing sensation low in her belly. She huffed in annoyance, knowing that she had less then an hour to find her special small clothes and rags. Once a month she suffered through cramps that stole her breath away while her moonblood came and passed. A day or two and she would be well again but for now, she cried out softly in pain as she searched for the oil lamp in the dark.

 

Feeling cold metal beneath her fingers, she tore off the blindfold and then lit the lamp. She kept the light low, trying to shuffle over to her chest without making any noise. The lid creaked loudly and Sandor’s body moved in the bed.

 

“The hell you doing?” came his voice from under the furs.

 

“It’s alright. Just go back to sleep. It’s –“  she hissed when another spike of twisting pain shot through her. It felt like there was hot glass grinding around inside her. Sansa doubled over, holding her belly and breathing through the cramp. And then suddenly Sandor was looming over top of her. He’d thrown on a pair of breeches and flown to her side with incredible speed. Sansa felt the slightest disappointment that she’d missed seeing him naked.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” he barked. Sansa wanted to smile at the alarm in his voice but it was impossible to do so with the unforgiving ache in her gut.

 

“I’m fine, I told you,” Sansa started, straightening again and looking through her chest with haste. This was an embarrassment she hadn’t thought of before. Sandor looked at her critically. “It’s my moonblood,” she mumbled and for a second time she saw surprise upon his face. “It will be fine. It’s like this every month” –she grimaced- “I just need my small clothes and some torn rags.”

 

“You’ve got your small clothes on already,” he said in a tone that suggested she was dim.

 

“Not these!” she shouted, a cramp seizing her once again. She didn’t have the time nor the patience to explain woman’s blood to him.

 

“You do this every month?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “So you can have babes? That’s a shit bargain.”

 

Sansa laughed so hard she had to grab a hold of his arm to keep balanced. “It is,” she agreed. “Turn around a moment?” Her tone was kinder than minutes before. “Let me dress properly and then I’ll come back to bed.”

 

Sandor looked her over once again, like he was trying to see inside her and assess if she spoke the truth. It was amusing to push at his arm to get him to go back to the warmth of furs instead of being sent there herself. Once she had changed, and made sure all was secure, Sansa wriggled back into bed with him. She shut her eyes tightly, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Every few minutes a cramp would pass over her, causing her to hold her breath or whimper. She kept her back to Sandor, trying not to disturb him.

 

“Do you have to do that?” he complained.

 

“I’m sorry,” she ground out through her clenched teeth. “It hurts. I’ll try to be quieter. It will be better tomorrow night.”

 

Sansa wrapped her hands around her belly, willing the cramps to cease and her mind to sleep. It didn’t work, of course, and she struggled not to shift or whine. And then she felt knuckles press into the small of her back. She moaned, long and low at the relief that was almost instantaneous. Sandor’s touch continued; deep and penetrating, kneading circles into the tight muscles just above her bottom.

 

“Where did you learn that?” Sansa managed to ask.

 

He paused for a moment. “Is it working?”

 

“Mmmm, yes,” she hummed. “It’s much better.”

 

Sandor grunted and started rubbing at her again as he spoke. “There was a woman once. Paid to watch her and not five minutes in some other whore came bursting into the room, saying the woman’s sister was stuck in labor and they needed her. They told me to wait. They’d find me another girl on the house and the next time would be as well, but I was already in my cups by then. I wanted what I’d paid for so I followed them down the hall once I got my legs working. Wish I hadn’t. Opened a door and saw _everything_.”

 

Sansa brought a hand up to her mouth to keep from laughing out loud at his story. She was glad he was speaking to her; talking, as she supposed, a normal couple would. But the image of him walking into a birthing room was almost too much for her to try not to chuckle at.

 

“It’s _not_ funny,” he said irritably, feeling her shaking with silent giggles, though he didn’t stop his massage. “The woman was standing, holding onto a bedpost and, Gods, I don’t know how she didn’t split wide open, her belly was so swollen. There was sweat and blood. She was naked and groaning like a mad cow. But the sister was behind her, rubbing at her back.” Sansa felt him shrug. “Thought it might work on you so I can get some sleep,” he finished.

 

“Thank you,” Sansa said, her voice drowsy. His attentions _had_ made a difference.  The cramps were dull now instead of piercing. Sandor pulled her over to him, belly to back as he often liked to sleep with her. His hands were warm and Sansa tugged one down to lay across her belly, just above her womanhood. The heat from his body felt splendid as it seeped into her to further tame the pain of her flow. He kept his hand where she had placed it, allowing them both to sleep.

 


	5. Chapter 5 - Forgiveness

“Ouch!” Sansa blurted out, still half asleep. She swatted at the cause of her discomfort. Something had been jabbing her in the shoulder. Blinking her eyes in the bright light from the sun, she suddenly shot up in bed. It was late in the morning and she wasn’t wearing her blindfold. Then the events of last night came back to her. The endeavor of trying to treat Sandor’s wounds, morphing into both a cathartic and physical release for her husband. His flesh in her hand, sleep, pain from her womb and then finding peace wrapped in a warm embrace and no cloth on her eyes.

 

“Watch out!” Sandor shouted, moving back from her as she sat up, to keep from bashing heads with her. He had been hovering over top of her, poking a gloved finger into her arm. He was fully dressed and Sansa could smell herbs and something sweet. On the table there was a copper kettle of tea and a plate of scones. “You don’t sleep this late,” Sandor said grumpily. “You sure you’re not ill?”

 

Sansa couldn’t help but smile at his concern. Sandor tried to hide his worry in a sharp tone, and a reprimand for being lazy, but Sansa knew he felt the opposite. “Not in the way you think,” she explained. She reached up to cup his jaw and though his skin twitched at the contact, he didn’t recoil from her touch. The movement felt slow and clumsy to her. Sansa’s body felt lethargic and the smell of the strong tea made her stomach want to heave. Perhaps she should stay in their room for a day, she thought. “Could you tell Ada I won’t be there today?” she asked Sandor. “Or at least send a message to her? Tell her it’s woman’s business. That’s all you need say. She’ll understand. I’ll rest today and feel better tomorrow. I promise.” 

 

He nodded and gave her a grunt of agreement, though his eyes held misgivings inside them. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “And do you mind taking the tea with you?” Sandor looked to the table where he’d put her breakfast, something like anger and embarrassment in his stance. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sansa hastily added. “I feel queasy and the smell is too much right now. Maybe later, but for now, can you take it back?”

 

Sandor scowled but did as she asked, letting the door slam shut behind him as he left the room. Sansa was sorry for having to ask him to remove his offering. He’d never brought tea before and had only been trying to be helpful.  And he’d left before she could treat his back! She would be sure to make it up to him later. Now, however, she needed to start her day and tend to her small clothes. Sansa rose and splashed water on her face first. She was about to rinse herself in the room and then thought better of it. She felt sticky and bloated. A long soak in a tub was in order. Sansa nibbled at a scone cautiously as she gathered soap, oils and her robe. The few bites she ate stayed down, though she had no interest in attempting any more.

 

The morning passed with time spent in the bath and then sitting in a chair by the window, reading one of Sandor’s books. Sansa hadn’t blatantly asked for permission to read them but Sandor never stopped her from doing so. She didn’t touch his mother’s book, or the ones surrounding it, too frightened she would somehow damage it. The sun was warm on her face as she sat; causing her to close her eyes and drift off. She dreamt of a hot sun above her, while she stood in the shadow of a tall man. There were children laughing in the distance and the man smiled.

 

The sound of their chamber door opening startled Sansa out of her nap. Sandor kicked the door shut behind him as he entered, a burlap sack held in both his hands. Sansa smiled in greeting, stretching in her seat and looked at him curiously. “Ada says to rest,” Sandor spoke like he was giving her orders, “and that she’ll need you tomorrow. His Grace” – Sandor’s lip curled at the title - “is due for his first fitting of his wedding tunic.”

 

“Oh,” Sansa exhaled, her posture deflating. Since the betrothal between her and Joffrey had been broken months ago, a new Lady had been chosen to wed the King. In a fortnight, Lady Margaery Tyrell would be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. All the girls in the sewing room had been working on Lady Tyrell’s dress for over a week, and now, it was time to start on the King’s outfit. Ada had given her an apologetic look when she asked Sansa if she were up to the task and Sansa, not wanting to appear weak, had complied. For the past month of her marriage she’d managed to avoid Joffrey and his cruelty. She was not looking forward to tomorrow. Sansa picked at her robe, feeling tears in her eyes, while she kept her gaze on her lap.

 

The burlap sack came into view. Sandor had dropped it into her arms, taking another step forward and lifting her chin. “Stop crying,” he barked, but there was gentleness to it; the excited yip of a nervous lap dog, not the foaming snarl of a hound.  “I’ll be there. He won’t hurt you.” His words were a balm like no other and Sansa nodded her head before sniffling and setting her attention to the bag he’d given her. “Ada said you’d need . . . things,” Sandor said, shrugging and retreating several paces.

 

The first item was a bottle of wine. Sansa laughed and cast him a questioning look. He shrugged again. “Never hurts,” he commented. There was more to be pulled from the depths of the bag. Sugared dates, fresh rags, little brown vials and a packet of dried leaves. Sansa sniffed at the packet, her nose identifying peppermint for nausea.

 

“Did you go to a maester?” Sansa asked somewhat awestruck, while holding one of the vials up to the light.

 

“Aye,” he answered. “You’re supposed to take them if the pain gets to be too much. No more than three a day, he said.”

 

“You went to a maester?” Sansa repeated softly. “For me?”

 

“You didn’t eat,” Sandor observed, prodding the now hard scones with his finger. He ignored her inquiry.

 

“You hate maesters,” she whispered, starting to weep.

 

“And I hate it when you do that!” he shouted, whipping a rough cloth from his pocket and wiping at her face.

 

“I’m sorry,” she cried, taking the cloth in her hands and dabbing at her eyes. “That was kind of you.”  Then her stomach growled loudly.

 

“You hungry now?” he asked, paying no mind to the compliment she’d given him. “There’s pigeon pies down in the kitchen. Can you eat one of those?”

 

Sansa’s mouth watered. The nausea of earlier had passed and now she felt ravenous. “Yes, that sounds delicious,” she quickly agreed, handing his handkerchief back to him. “I’ll dress and be down shortly.” She stood and placed her sack of healing agents and comforts on the table.

 

“Stay,” he told her. “I’ll go.” Before Sansa could protest, he was gone.  She stood with her mouth hanging open. There had been a change in him from last night. He was being attentive and surprisingly thoughtful. More water gathered in her eyes, while she swiped it away with haste. She always found herself easily brought to tears when her moonblood flowed and Sandor wouldn’t be pleased to find her still weeping when he returned.

 

Sighing, she uncorked one of the vials and drank its contents. The bath had helped to lessen the pain in her belly for an hour or two, but it was back along with an ache in all her bones. The liquid tasted fresh; like citrus and rosewater, with the slightest hint of bitter at the back of her mouth. By the time Sandor arrived, bearing a tray of food, Sansa felt a languid wave of relief wash over her. Her muscles felt limp and her concerns of tomorrow forgotten. She smiled crookedly at Sandor and the food.

 

He’d brought enough for two, explaining he might as well eat with her if he was making the trip for food anyway. There were the pigeon pies as promised, along with bread and potatoes. There was even a large dish of custard that quivered in its dish when Sandor let it clatter onto the table. Sansa giggled at the wobbling treat. Sandor looked at her with an air of amused superiority.

 

“You alright, Little Bird?” he asked.

 

Sansa stared at the feast in front of her. She wanted to eat it all! His and hers! “This is lovely,” she beamed. “All of it lovely. Yes, lovely.” She reached for her spoon, but it went tumbling to the floor. Sansa laughed at it, watching it spin in a circle.

 

Sandor rolled his eyes at her. “You only took one?” he questioned, holding up the empty vial.

 

“Mm-hmm,” she confirmed, using her fork to break the crust on her pie and kicking resentfully at the spoon on the floor. Sandor shook his head at her, sitting and tucking into his own meal. Sansa shoveled food into her mouth, not caring if she looked unladylike or not. She was _starving_. Everything Sandor said was hilarious to her. And he seemed to be enjoying her laughter. Sansa choked and sputtered when he told her how one of the stable boys had mixed the wrong portions of oats to alfalfa that day, and all the horses had left the lad with a slurry of muck to clean. It wasn’t the best table conversation for polite company, but it seemed perfect for just the two of them.

 

“I have to go,” he announced suddenly. Was that a hint of disappointment Sansa could hear in his voice? “I’m late already.”

 

“We could do this again sometime?” Sansa suggested, starting in on the custard he’d left untouched. Sandor chewed at his cheek, weighing his apparent want against whatever it was he was fighting. “This was nice,” Sansa chirped, swinging her feet while she talked and ate. “I don’t go to work until after I’ve had a second meal. We could do this every few days.” Sandor nodded, though he looked at her like she was some sort of, as of yet, undiscovered insect. “Good!” Sansa was thrilled he’d agreed. “Next time, I’ll fetch the food though, alright?”

 

“Alright,” he agreed, then added, “don’t leave the room. And no wine! That tincture’s got you acting funny. Just stay here and out of trouble. I’ll bring supper later.” Sansa almost gave him a cheerful “yes, ser” but caught herself just in time. She grinned instead and winked at him.  Sandor continued to shake his head at her though Sansa swore she saw half a smirk on his face as he left.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

 

Sansa walked behind Ada on their way to the Red Keep’s throne room. Four other girls trailed behind her, carrying swatches of fabrics and baskets full of the tools of their trade. Sansa carried only parchment, quill and ink. It was her duty to take down Ada’s notes and measurements.  It would have been far easier a task to perform in the sewing room or even the King’s chambers, but Joffrey had insisted they all meet in the great throne room. Anything he could do to show power and wealth, he wanted as many others to see as possible.

 

It had been just over a month that she and Sandor had been wed. In all that time, Sansa had somehow kept herself hidden from Joffrey’s keen sense of callousness.  A few times they had passed in a hallway. He would be surrounded by those of the court, a few guards and the Lady Margaery on his arm. Sansa would keep her head lowered and glance at the party while they walked by one another.  Not once had Joffrey stopped her. The worst that had happened was that he would sneer at her and she would hear some sort of remark being uttered about how the wolf had been broken by a dog. It stung of course, but it was far better treatment than what she had been used to enduring before her marriage.

 

Today, Sansa knew there would be more than a thoughtless statement and a look. She would be made to stand in the King’s company for hours and there seemed no way in her mind that Joffrey would be able to resist tormenting her. She hoped it wouldn’t involve a beating. There were no marks on her body anymore. Nothing besides rosy circles on her teats, and low on her neck, where Sandor kissed her fervently. Those marks were made out of love and passion though, and didn’t bother her like the others she’d received by men’s hands.

 

The task wasn’t nearly as bad as Sansa had envisioned. Ada had asked for a low stool to be brought for Sansa to sit on while she took notes but Joffrey denied her, saying Sansa could kneel on the floor. She was wed to a dog and therefore her place was at the King’s heel. But that had been the worst of it. Besides a few snide remarks, the King gave her little attention. Lady Margaery came after a time and kept the King distracted by both her good looks and flirtatious charm.

 

It was all going as well as Sansa could have hoped for and then it was time for the changing of the guard. There were only two White Cloaks in the throne room along with half a dozen Gold Cloaks. Sandor had been placed with the Gold Cloaks after the night of the Blackwater, presumably until the day Joffrey felt him worthy enough to rejoin the Kingsguard. Sansa knew it to be a false promise. Joffrey had no intention of elevating Sandor to a higher position. She assumed Sandor knew this as well, though they never spoke of it.

 

Joffrey batted Ada away from him when he saw the fresh guards enter. “Ah, dog!” he addressed Sandor, “Your lady wife is being ever obedient at the foot of a man. You’ve trained her well. She never could shut her mouth in my presence before, but she’s been quiet as a mouse all afternoon. How have you managed to tame her?”

 

“Keep a bitch on her knees all night, there’s no room in her mouth for words,” Sandor droned, as if speaking of their marriage bored him. Several of the guards chortled at his words.

 

“Ha! Is that so? Who knew the girl would acquire a taste for cock? She is being of use to you then? It’s been near a week since we’ve spoken about her.”

 

“Better than before. She still cries and begs for home. It’s easy enough to turn her around and smack her arse till she quiets down. She acts a child most days.”

 

“But she’s a woman now! I dare say there’ll be a litter of pups on the way soon,” Joffrey twittered with frightening glee. Then he turned to look at her.  “Would you like that, Sansa? A whole pile of mangy puppies growing inside you?”

 

“No, your Grace,” Sansa replied miserably. She never thought that Sandor would be a part of her ordeal. He had said the King wouldn’t hurt her. He never said he, himself, wouldn’t. It was all lies pouring forth from his mouth and Sansa didn’t understand why. Certainly, Sandor couldn’t speak the truth but was it necessary to invent such filth?

 

And Joffrey spoke as if this weren’t the first time he and Sandor had shared confidences over the subject of their marriage. That was perhaps the most distressing bit of information. All this time, she’d been growing more secure and content while Sandor had been whispering vile encounters into the King’s ear. She thought their marriage to be something bordering happy. How could a man, who was satisfied with her, say such terrible things? She thought she could trust him.  

 

Sansa bit her tongue, refusing to cry. She _would not_ give Joffrey the satisfaction of seeing her break. And besides, it wasn’t Joffrey’s words that made her want to weep; it was Sandor’s. He wouldn’t even look at her. Sansa hung her head and concentrated on her letters and numbers as Ada began pinning fabric and rattling off how much cloth they would need.

 

It took an hour more to finish the fitting. Joffrey seemed more amused with the ale and tiny stuffed pastries a servant had brought than he did pressing Sandor for any more information.  The smell of sour, soft cheese and garlic assaulted Sansa’s nose every time the King spoke. But it wasn’t at her any longer and for that Sansa was tremendously grateful. Once she was certain she could look at Sandor without weeping, she had tried to catch his eye, but her husband never glanced her way.

 

Sansa spent the rest of her day in a fog, Sandor’s words cycling over and over again in her mind. She could still see his stony, unmoved expression. Were the things he said his true wants and desires? The words didn’t seem to match the man she’d come to know. But did she truly know him?  A month was barely anytime at all. And trying to pry intimacy out of Sandor was an impossible feat at times. What in all the world had made her think she could draw something out of him? It was laughable that she thought she could form a bond with him.

 

She ate little at the final meal of the day and once she was back in her room she couldn’t keep her tears in any longer. She sobbed into her pillow, this new hurt building on top of all the others she’d felt in the past few years. She wished she’d never heard of knights and passionate stories, princes and gallantry. It was lies, all of it lies. And Sandor was one of the best liars of all. Was it the King that was being lied to or her?

 

By the time Sandor made it to their room she was near hysterical. She hadn’t been so emotionally overwrought since her father’s death. Or the day she’d flowered. Everything was blending together, sending her spiraling down a tunnel made of sorrow, self doubt and abandonment. She knew she must have looked like a wild bog woman when he stepped into the room and she didn’t care! He’d done this to her!

 

“Wha-,“ he started.

 

“How could you say that!” she hollered, throwing her pillow at him. “How could you? After what we’ve done!” She reached for another pillow, but he was across the room in four giant strides, taking her wrist in his hand. He was so strong! He could snap all the bones in her hand if he chose to.

 

“The hell are you talking about?” he bellowed, shaking her arm until she dropped the pillow. “What’s gotten into you?”

 

 

“The King!” she cried, fresh tears making their way down her cheeks. “You said such horrible things! Why would you do that? You lied! I don’t do. . . and you don’t! And . . .” Sansa continued to wail in-between her words that were slipping into nonsense. “I thought you were _happy_! I thought I was too!”

 

Sandor’s eyes went dark and he dropped her arm. Now he was angry as well. “I do beg pardon _my Lady_ ,” he said, his voice dripping with furious sarcasm. “Did you forget who you married? We don’t _get_ to be happy. Learn that lesson fast.” He pushed her towards the bed. She landed so hard her bottom bounced once before she settled. “You stop your sniveling and think, girl. Have you been beaten since you married me?”  Sansa’s hands trembled while she shook her head.

 

“Not once?” Sandor pressed, seemingly disgusted with her. “No Trant or Blount or Moore, bruising that precious porcelain of yours? No lashes with a sword or belt? Anyone grab you? Kick you? Cuff you over the head?”

 

“N-no,” Sansa said through her tears, feeling ill to her stomach.

 

“The King ever spit out names at you? Degrade you in front of the court? Aside from today?”

 

“No,” Sansa whispered, a sense of dread creeping over her. She’d made an unforgivable mistake.

 

“No,” Sandor confirmed, letting out an angry huff. “You get to eat cakes and play in your sewing room and have a man suck your teats at night. And why’s that?”

 

“Because . . .” Sansa started, tears forming once again, but for different reasons than before. “Because, when Joff asks how I’m being treated you lie. You tell him you’re keeping me miserable so he doesn’t come after me. If he thought you were making me happy he’d see to it himself that I wasn’t.”

 

“And you’d better damn well remember it the next time you want to spend all day crying and yell at me,” Sandor grumbled, starting to unbuckle his armor. Sansa rose to help him and he growled at her, warning her to stay back.  Then he seemed to crumble in on himself, his back losing its rigidness. “I said I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said quietly, looking to the floor. “Only for you, Little Bird. Never to you.”

 

Sansa rushed over to him, jumping to wrap her arms around his neck. His armor pressed into her chest while his gorget pinched at her flesh. She squeezed his neck tighter. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “Sandor, I’m . . . that was cruel of me.”  One arm came around her middle, offering support while she kissed his good ear. Then he lowered her back down to her feet.

 

He held her chin between his fingers. “If he asks you how I treat you, you lie. Do you understand? You tell him I hit you.” His eyes looked away from her while he inhaled sharply. “Tell him I force you. You lie or he’ll take his sick pleasure out on your skin.”

 

Sansa frowned but nodded her head. How awful would it feel to have to lie like that about someone she cared for? How did it make Sandor feel to do so on her behalf? Sansa cursed silently at herself. Sandor, once again, seemed to sense her thoughts. “You lie, Sansa,” he repeated. “You’re not saving me by telling the truth. They expect it of me anyway. If you don’t lie, if I hear anyone touched you, I’ll kill them. I swear it and they won’t spare my life again after that. Do you want that?” There was a pleading look in his eyes.

 

Sansa pulled at his brigandine, drawing his lips down to hers. “Never,” she breathed, before sealing her declaration with a kiss.

 

It was easy enough to help remove his armor after their embrace. Sandor seemed ready and willing to accept her apologies in the form of unbuckled leather and loosened ties; all done with care and mindfulness. Sansa was even able to push at him lightly, until he sat in one of their chairs. She knelt before him, not to take him in her mouth as he had hinted at earlier in the day –she didn’t know where to start at such an act- but to pull at his boots for him. It was a humble sort of gesture. One shaded with repentance and devotion.

 

He wore no socks or stockings, and she promised herself she’d start at once at knitting him several pairs on the morrow.  She supposed, in his youth, his feet had suffered as his back did now. But years of standing at attention and blisters that had healed over, piling on top of one another, had left the soles resembling the leather of his sword belt. The heels were hard with toughened skin. And there was, indeed, a missing small toe from his right foot. Sansa, caught herself staring and rubbing unconsciously at the maimed foot, her head snapping up to see if her husband would berate her for her actions.

 

Sandor’s head was tilted back, leaning against the back of the chair. His eyes were shut and his face, for once, was free of anger or irritation. Sansa used the tips of her fingers to press at the bottom of his foot experimentally. He sighed softly in response. Sansa smiled at the rare, quiet moment between them. It hadn’t occurred to her until now he must not have had the pleasure of any type of massage before. And she could make it better for him!

 

“Stay there,” she whispered, using his thighs to help herself to her feet. He opened one eye, watching, as she made her way to her trunk. From inside it, she pulled the ointment meant for his back at night. It would work just as well on his feet. Before settling on the floor again, she uncorked the bottle of wine he’d given to her yesterday, to help ease her cramps. The bottle had remained untouched; the maester’s tincture having done enough on its own to ease her discomfort.

 

Pouring a cup, she put it into Sandor’s hands and then sat on the floor once again. This man she would kneel for gladly and no other. The memory of sitting at Joff’s side that afternoon wanted replacing with a happier one at the foot of her husband.  Pulling one of his feet into her lap, Sansa first coated her hands in the creamy, thick ointment from the master. Then she rubbed and kneaded at her husband’s soles; each one in turn, spending many long minutes attending to them.

Sandor, at first, sipped at his wine, but soon put the cup down and seemed to forget it existed, shutting his eyes once more and relaxing under her touch. Sansa kept working at her task, spreading the ointment between his toes and all the way up to his ankles. There was a high pitched noise from Sandor’s throat above her. Raising her eyes, she saw the growing evidence of pleasure within his breeches. She ducked her head down quickly, holding back startled laughter.  Arousal hadn’t been one of her expected reactions from him.

 

“I can do this on your back as well,” she said, waiting on him to open his eyes. When he did, she continued speaking while glancing at his lap brazenly, “And anywhere else it pleases you.”

 

Sansa was lifted off the ground before the last word made it out of her mouth. Sandor tossed her over his shoulder easily, bending down to grab at the pot of ointment still on the floor. He was going to take her up on her offer! Sansa struggled playfully in his arms, gleeful cries assuring Sandor she approved of his actions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him snatch at the length of blue silk as well, as he tossed her onto their bed. They spent the rest of the night tumbling in the sheets together finding bliss. Not once, but twice for the both of them, and it wasn’t his back he had her rub at first.  


	6. Chapter 6 - Trust

Three days until the King’s wedding, and Sansa found herself eating with a few girls from the sewing room in one of the servants dining halls. Some handmaidens had joined them as well, including Laurie, whom Sansa now only saw at meal times, since the girl had been dismissed from her service. The past week had crawled by for Sansa, while she tried to ignore the impending sense of doom around her. There was a future coming towards her that was full of unknowns. Would the wedding bring more misfortune upon her? Or would it help to make her invisible to Joffrey’s eyes? Lady Margaery had a kind air about her and was able to manipulate Joffrey into taking the actions she wanted. She always made is seem as if Joff himself had made the decision and that was where Lady Margaery’s cleverness shined brightest. Sansa wished, at times, she had been able to do the same with Joffrey. Not to win him over, but only to spare herself some of the pain and humiliation that courtesies hadn’t been able to save her from. If she had been better at evading the truth as Sandor was, or more skilled at maneuvering men with cunning adoration, like Margaery, she might have been dealt less bruises.

 

Sansa had been invited to the wedding feast, though she was not part of a station that would usually be in attendance for such a grand event. But Joffrey had insisted she attend. It was another chance to rub what could have been in her face. When Sansa had pouted over the invitation, Sandor had told her to lift her chin and go. It would do her no good to defy the King and besides, there ought to be a decent meal out of it. Sometimes his blunt way of thinking seemed uncaring to Sansa.

 

“It’s going to be awful,” Sansa whined. “Why do you want me to do something I’ll hate?”

 

“I never said I wanted you miserable, girl,” Sandor grunted back. “You put words in my mouth that aren’t there. I don’t want to see you beaten is all and staying here in your room, instead of out there, will earn you one. And if you have to go, the least you can do is enjoy the food. They’re spending a fortune on it. Drink the Dornish white if it’s on the table. It’s older than you are and worth more than three months of my fucking salary. Take your displeasure out on the King’s purse. Drink like I would. Better yet, spill it!” There was a gleam in his eyes; mischievous and boy like.  It made Sansa smile to see him slip into a different role other than hardened soldier, if only for a moment.

 

Joffrey, for all his want to see her unhappy, couldn’t have known that Sansa much preferred the way things had worked out. She doubted highly that Joffrey would have ever treated her as Sandor did. Her husband wasn’t a great romantic but it was obvious he cared for her and her comfort. Sandor did things differently from her; he spoke loudly and honestly, even if it meant hurt feelings. He hated doubt and unnecessary sulking from her. But he also saw to her needs, let her sit on his knee in the evenings and made her body thrum with pleasure at night. There had been two or three mornings, as well, that he’d reached from behind her to find her core, sending her hurtling towards rapture while his naked cock rubbed into the flesh of her thighs, leaving her sticky with their mixed fluids.  

 

Someone bumped into Sansa’s back, jostling her from her daydream that had taken a lovely turn for the better. Sansa sighed, perturbed that her one happy thought of the day had been disrupted. There came a noisy giggle behind her.

 

“Didn’t take long for the Hound to get back in the saddle, did it m’lady,” Camilla, one of the kitchen girls, laughed. “Poor dear, it’s not your fault with an animal like that for a husband.”

 

“Don’t be unkind, Camilla,” Laurie hissed. She patted Sansa’s hand, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of men, husbands or not, do it.” Sansa looked back and forth between the two women, trying to work out what they were on about. 

 

Camilla’s face split into a wide, predatory-like grin. “Ah, the lady hasn’t heard yet?” Sansa looked to the girls around the table for help. Most of them kept their eyes on their plates. One or two gave her a pitying look. Only Ada stood up quickly.

 

“Go tease someone else Camilla. Everyone knows you turn the same sort of tricks when the ovens shut down!”

 

“Hmph!” Camilla huffed, turning her nose up. She started to walk away but called back over her shoulder. “He’d at least get a good romp out of me! Wouldn’t have to go to no brothels if he were my husband.”

 

Sansa dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter at Camilla’s words. “What does she mean?” Sansa asked Ada, already sensing and dreading the answer.  Sandor had come back to their chambers well past midnight, claiming he had to help cover an ill guard.

 

No, that wasn’t right. She’d fallen asleep by candlelight waiting on him; a book slipping from her fingers to splay over her chest. He had removed it from her gently, at Gods only knew what hour, tucked himself behind her in the bed and mumbled his version of an apology. He’d been needed elsewhere for a time, he had said, and Sansa had been too tired to question him. She had filled in the blanks in his explanation herself. He hadn’t lied to her but, if the rumor she was now hearing was true, he hadn’t given her the whole story either.

 

Sansa blinked back the tears that were starting to form in her eyes. She could sense others in the dining hall watching her, drawn in by Camilla’s shouting. A new, scandalous morsel of gossip was always a highly sought after distraction amongst the servants. They liked to tear into other’s personal lives like animals fought over a fattened chop of meat. Sansa felt humiliation turn her cheeks red. It was bad enough he’d gone to a brothel! But for her to remain ignorant of the fact turned the blow to her ego into a punch in her gut.

 

Ada gave her a frown. “I don’t know for certain. It’s all the kitchen girls have been buzzing about today though. Someone’s got a sister in Baelish’s place. They say the Hound was there last night, but Sansa, it doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“What else could it mean?” Sansa said angrily. “I’m not stupid. What other reason would he have to go there?”  Ada looked at her sadly and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Sansa apologized, while wiping at her eyes. “I didn’t know. It’s a surprise. I didn’t think I was giving him reason to go but, I suppose, I was wrong.”

 

“Don’t cry, Sansa!” Laurie interjected. “I told you! Lots of men do it. I don’t think it’s your fault. Sometimes  . . . sometimes they like something different, is all.”

 

Sansa nodded primly. It would be disgraceful to cause a scene in the dining hall. There was no point in adding more fuel to the fire of gossip blazing around her. She cut her rabbit into tiny bites, pecking at the spice rubbed meat until the other women had finished with their meals. Then she excused herself politely.

 

For the first time in weeks, Sansa took to the godwoods within the Red Keep’s walls. It would be quiet there and she could think. Sansa refused to let her mind run wild as it had the last time she had questioned Sandor’s actions. She knelt before a small patch of pink and white hyssops. She affectionately touched the frail blossoms, thinking over her recent time spent with Sandor. The flowers reminded her of the basin and pitcher in their room. He’d tended to her like she was a prize and then gone to a brothel? Why was he so difficult to understand? 

 

They had been growing closer again, it seemed. Once she’d apologized for doubting his intentions, they hadn’t shared one unpleasant word between them. They ate together every other day and at night she’d gotten quite skilled at helping him with his armor. He too, had started to help her undress at night. If she wasn’t out of her dress by the time he was off duty, he would spin her around and loosen the ties at the back of her dress for her. She could manage the rest on her own, though he often liked to peal her stockings off as well. In the mornings he left her before she was dressed. She did the best she could on her own but sometimes had to ask one of the girls in the sewing room to tighten her laces. What bothered Sansa the most about her morning routine was she couldn’t spend as much time on her hair as she wished. The elaborate styles she used to twist her hair into were impossible to create on her own. That’s when she missed Laurie most. She knew her hair to be a secret delight of Sandor’s and it would be nice to be able and wear it especially for him.

 

Neither one of them were shy any longer when it came to the pleasure they could bring one another. The blindfold was still between them, and Sandor hadn’t moved yet to join them but Sansa hardly noticed. Their life between the marriage sheets was satisfying and she had no reason to complain. Sandor’s eyes weren’t as hateful when he came back to her in the evenings. In the mornings, he left with a bounce in his step that no one could see but her.

 

Sansa shook her head, giving the flowers one last pat. None of it added up in her mind. If he wanted to join with her fully all he had to do was ask. Or simply have her when she was laid out bare to him. Maybe, he wanted to try the act with someone else first?  Perhaps he was nervous? Sansa balked at the idea but it did make a certain type of sense. Sandor was built of power and courage, but he lost some of it when it came to her. He was also a practical man. Was he trying out his skills on another woman to make sure he didn’t harm her when they coupled?  That seemed logical to Sansa, though it hurt her heart.

 

Returning to her room, she dressed for bed alone. She didn’t want to offend Sandor and jump at him as she had last time with accusations, but she didn’t wish to remain silent either. How did one broach a subject such as this? There weren’t any stories in which the Knight went off to the whores while his pretty bride sat at home still a virgin. Sansa chose a long sleeved, dove gray sleeping gown and tucked herself into bed. She tried over and over again to come up with a way to ask him, rejecting one idea after another. Finally, their door creaked open and Sansa shut her eyes, feigning sleep.

 

It was a cowardly thing to do but avoidance seemed all she was capable of at the moment. She listened to Sandor undress quietly, trying to keep her breath even and slow. She could sense him over top of her. Was he watching her?  He stood there for what seemed like ages and then he ran the back of his hand over her cheek. “Little Bird?” he whispered.

 

Sansa didn’t respond. Oh, she would have to answer for this one day! If Septa Mordan was still alive she would have rapped her across the knuckles for such disobedient, deceptive behavior. Sandor waited another minute and then retreated. The sound of wood creaking was heard as he sat and then the slosh of wine in a cup. The pages of a book turned and Sansa kept at her false slumber. She tried to sleep but her heart hammered fast in her chest, giving her no chance at rest.

 

At long last, she heard the clomp of his boots hitting the floor as he removed them. He groaned in pleasure and then made his way to his side of the bed. There was the sound of cloth shifting when he pulled his tunic over his head and then the furs were lifted as he moved near her in the bed.

 

“Where were you last night?” she said, surprising herself. The question sprang out of her mouth almost of its own accord. Sandor froze behind her.

 

“You asking because you already know?” he questioned. When she didn’t answer he sighed and rolled over onto his back. “Fucking women,” he grumbled. “A man can’t have one single thing to himself in this city without women squawking about it the next day.”

 

Sansa sat up, crossing her arms over her chest to hug herself. “So it’s true?” she asked sadly. “You went to Baelish’s last night?”

 

“Aye,” he answered, sitting up as well. He drew his knees close to his torso, placing his forearms on them. “Is the Little Bird jealous?” he grinned. He was trying to make a joke out of it! A sob burst forth from her that sounded like a sloppy hiccup.  Sandor looked at her strangely while she balled her hands into fists and rubbed at her cheeks. He seemed shocked at her outburst. Then his eyes widened and he jabbed a finger into her arm. “You think I went for a woman?” he asked, his tone incredulous.

 

“Of course!” Sansa cried. “Why else do men go to such places?”  Sandor tilted his head back and laughed as if she were the court fool! “Why are you laughing at me?” Sansa continued weeping.  

 

“You’re jealous!” he howled, throwing himself back onto the pillows, laughter making his face contort with merriment. He put a hand over his eyes, tears starting to gather at the corners of them, he was laughing so hard. “You’re jealous . . . over _me_!” he roared. “Ah, Gods, that’s a new one,” he sniffed, trying to calm his chuckling. Sansa didn’t know what to make of him or the situation any longer. She stopped crying out of sheer confusion, though a wet trail still lingered on her skin.

 

Sandor sat up again; an abrupt, yet fluid motion. There was a genuine smile on his face and his eyes softened as he brought his thumb to her cheek. “You’re prettier when you’re not crying,” he observed, wiping the tears off of her and onto the furs. Sansa was dumbstruck. She’d never seen him this close to happiness before. It was slightly frightening to witness the change in his features.

 

“I don’t understand you at all,” she sighed.

 

“Ha! You ever figure it out, you let me know,” he said, half serious and half in jest. Then, his usual, troubled glare was back. “I didn’t go for a woman,” he rasped.

 

“Will you tell me why?”

 

Sandor’s eyebrows came together, thinking his next move out. He tried to say something and paused, then started again. It seemed he was having an internal debate with himself. “I don’t want to lie to you, Sansa. Silence is better than a lie. It will be clear tomorrow, I swear it.” –he turned his whole body to face her, placing a few fingers at her breast- “Can you . . . is there a place in you that’s able to . . .” he said in a way that lacked any roughness. It was almost _tender_. Sansa saw something in his eyes, imploring her to voice his yearnings.

 

“You want me to trust you?” Sansa suggested. There was no verbal answer, but he nodded his head solemnly, keeping his gaze on the furs. He was in earnest then. Her husband had yet to be able to look her in the eye when he asked for something he desired.

 

“Don’t deserve it,” she heard him mumble. There was a thickness in his voice that meant he was becoming overwhelmed. “Not after . . .” Sansa attempted to find his eyes with her own. She needed to know what emotion he was trying to navigate in order to see them both through. He refused her, finally shutting his gray orbs when she didn’t give up.

 

There was too much in the eyes, Sansa understood. Too much emotion in hers and too many fears in his. The possibility that she might see them all was more than someone like him, flogged inside and out, could cope with. And Sansa knew the moment he spoke of, in which he considered himself damned forever in her eyes.

 

In the beginning, it was she that feared him. When that particular wall had crumbled, during a song born of terror that ended in fragile knowledge, he was the one left bared and shivering before her. For every step they walked together, her fears lessened and his grew. Rejection was the lord of all his fears. She herself had helped raise that lord to power. All the times he had tried to earn her trust and she had denied him. He’d given her advice, protected her, and stood up for her in a courtroom full of highborns who wanted her blood in place of her brother’s. Then there was the greatest deed of all; an offer to take her home. All of this, he’d given to her, silently asking for one thing in return and she had thrown it all back in his face.

 

Was it any wonder why he’d broken and tried to take something for himself? If she wouldn’t give him her love or trust, then his options became limited. Reeling and desperate for _something_ from her, he had threatened her. But he could have asked that of any woman, Sansa thought. That night, he could have paid for, begged or forced anything he liked from any number of women. The city was in chaos and no one would have stopped him. But he’d come to _her_ , and tried once again to become something in her eyes. 

 

The entire night made more sense now that she knew more about him. A petrified man, pushed past all his limits, and having never felt a woman’s embrace would certainly lose himself to drink and darkness. He had told her he was going. In his mind he was dead or leaving. Each option meant he’d never see her again. And his final wish, before they parted, had been a song. Sansa knew well enough what song he’d meant. If he were going to die, or to live his life in hiding, it was her he wanted as his last memory. It wasn’t an excuse for his violence, but it did give Sansa the chance to think on the reasons behind it.

 

Slowly, easily, Sansa climbed her way into his lap. He let her, spreading his arms wide to allow her space to adjust. She settled, facing him and encircling his body with her legs and arms. Sandor wanted trust from her and didn’t feel as if he’d earned it. The night of the Blackwater was his own personal penance he used to keep himself locked inside guilt and shame. Sansa found that she _did_ trust him. Completely, and in a new way than before they were married. There was no one else in all the world she could place her faith in besides him. He might stumble. He might unintentionally misstep and cause her grief, but he would care for her, love her and save her just as she saved him. He would not betray her. It was time to shatter the lock and set him free.

 

“I forgive you,” she whispered in the hole that served as an ear. Sandor’s next breath out was hot against her throat. “I trust you,” she went on, “if you say it wasn’t for a woman, then it wasn’t for a woman. I don’t understand at all, but if you want me to trust you, I will.”

 

“You make me feel safe,” Sansa said shyly, blushing at the thought of giving him this piece of her heart. His head lifted from her shoulder, ready to argue but she quickly pointed to his pile of armor and weaponry in the corner. “And it’s not because of that!” she explained, almost shouting. “It’s this,” she said, pulling his hand over her heart as he had done for her weeks ago. “Please don’t break it.”


	7. Chapter 7 - Cullmination

There was a knock at her door. Sansa’s heart doubled its rhythm and her stomach flipped, thinking back on days when a knock at the door meant a summons from Joffrey. She tip-toed to the door, in her bare feet. She’d been in the middle of dressing when the knock sounded. Maybe she could pretend she wasn’t inside and whoever was outside would leave. Sansa pressed her ear to door, holding her breath. There was a sniffle and the cough of what sounded like a child from the other side. Then the knock came again.

 

“Is this Lady Sansa’s room?” a girl’s voice called. Sansa jumped back from the door. What in all the Seven Kingdoms was going on? The voice sounded too young to be any of the ladies from the sewing room. No one came to visit her back in the Hound’s bedchamber and besides, she didn’t know anyone to match how small that voice sounded.

 

Carefully, Sansa opened the door. There was a girl with a red scarf tied around her head. Her dress was made of plain, tan colored wool and Sansa could see a few wisps of blonde, gossamer like hair sneaking out from under the scarf. The girl had emerald green eyes and a spray of freckles across her cheeks. She was petite and had a sunny smile on her face, revealing straight teeth. One day, she was going to make a fine looking woman.

 

“Is this the Lady Sansa’s room?” the girl asked again, giving a quick bob of a curtsy.

 

“It is,” Sansa answered. “That is my name.”

 

“Begging your pardon if I’ve disturbed you, but your husband sent me,” the girl said happily.

 

“And who are you?” Sansa said with suspicion. Her husband sent her indeed! What rubbish!

 

“I’m sorry, m’lady, my name is Brighton.” The girl curtsied again. “Your husband, the Hound? He told me to come and help his Lady wife dress in the mornings.”

 

“He didn’t say anything to me about this. Where do you come from? Do you work here in the castle?”

 

“Oh, no!” Brighton exclaimed. Then her voice took on a dreamy quality. “Might be, one day, I’ll work here all the time. Right now I work in Lord Baelish’s house. My mother is a working woman. I help the ladies there dress and bathe in order to earn my bread and pallet. I can do it for you too! I can carry water and oil your hair! I know how to paint faces if that’s what you’d like.”  There was a sad, desperate sort of look on her face. “Please m’lady,” Brighton implored, “My tenth name day was last week and Lord Baelish wanted to set me to working. But then your husband, he said he’d pay to keep me pure if I would help you.”

 

“When did this happen?” Sansa said, holding onto the door frame. “When did my husband offer this position to you?”

 

“Two nights back, m’lady,” Brighton answered quickly. “Am I late? He said I could have a day to myself before working.”

 

“No, no, you’re right on time,” Sansa assured the girl. She reminded Sansa so much of herself at that age, pretty as the stars, and full of hope. The girl had yet to fill out though. She hadn’t any teats and she came up to just below Sansa’s breast. And Littlefinger had wanted to send this creature into a man’s bed for coin? Sansa grew furious inside but held her emotions in check for the sake of the girl.

 

“In fact,” Sansa smiled warmly, “you’re just in time to help me with my hair.” She pulled Brighton by the hand into the room. “Can you braid?” she asked. Brighton smiled back, nodding her head.

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

 

Later that night, Sansa took to the baths. She made sure to go when she knew Sandor would be coming back from his patrol. Earlier, Brighton had brushed her hair until it became silky to the touch. Then the girl had braided it into sections, before pinning each piece to her head in a stunning arrangement. In the bath, Sansa took care to keep her hair dry. She scrubbed at her skin with a bar of soap that had sand embedded in it, then poured a generous amount of oil into her bathwater. She lingered there until the water turned cold. Then she wrapped herself in her robe and padded back to her room.

 

Sandor was sitting, facing a window with a book in his lap. She crept up behind him, knowing full well he heard her. Hugging him around the neck, she felt him start, but she held fast and trailed a line of kisses over the burns on his cheek.  She watched the heel of his boots scrape at the floor.

 

“What’s this?” he yelped.

 

“My husband is a kind man,” she said, merrily, rubbing her nose against the burnt portion of his scalp. He’d begun to shake, just the slightest amount. “Not all the time,” she corrected. “But sometimes, he surprises me. Thank you. For Brighton. And thank you for sparing her. You _are_ a good man at times.”

 

“Pfffft,” he answered. “You would have yelled at me if you’d found out I let the little one bleed.”  But for all his rough words, he let his head fall to the side so she could kiss him again.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

 

The King was dead, Sansa’s mind repeated on the first day. King Joffrey was dead, her heart thumped, on the second. He’s dead; Joffrey is _dead_ , Sansa’s spirit sang on the morning of the third. Joffrey was dead and she was free. Or something close to freedom. As near to it as she’d been since first arriving inside the walls of the Red Keep.

 

All eyes were on Tyrion, the Imp and suspected murderer of the boy King. No one cared about the grudge Joffrey held against her. No one took interest in a dog’s marriage bed. Both of them were _free_.

 

Sansa felt an untamed energy take over her body; a fearsome urge to start reclaiming all that had been taken from her. For the past two days she’d been caught in a whirlwind of disbelief and fear that somehow she would be blamed. But no one had paid her a second glance since the late King Joffrey had choked and perished because of his poisoned wedding cup. Sandor had kept a hesitant distance from her, not knowing what to say or do. He wasn’t skilled at comforting and Sansa wasn’t entirely sure that’s what she wanted. They ate together, slept together, but said little and did not take pleasure in one another.

 

But Sansa now found herself inexplicitly ready to seek out her husband and make him see what she had just realized herself. They could love and kiss and couple, in any way they saw fit, and _no one_ was going to question them. There would be no more fear, or shame, or inquisitions. She practically flew to the training yard, every bit the little bird her husband thought she was at times. Taking any steps she found two at a time, she nearly bowled into several servants in her path. She giggled out an apology, never stopping her mad dash to find her man, the only one who could rejoice in the same way as she.

 

She was out of breath, flushed and sweating by the time she made it to the training yard.  The scent from the oil she’d put behind her ears and between her breasts that morning wafted around her. Vanilla and bruised peaches made the air around her sweet with the promise of indulgence. Bringing a hand up to her forehead, to block the midmorning sun from her eyes, she scanned the yard for the man taller than all the others. He was a good distance away from her, so she brought two fingers to her mouth, whistling shrilly through the yard. It was foolish, most improper and not at all like her. And she didn’t care! _She did not care!_ Sansa felt reborn.

 

The heads of thirty men turned to look at her but only one approached her. Sansa climbed to the second rail on the fence between them to reach his height. “The hell you do-“ Sandor grumbled in a low tone, trying to keep attention away from them and failing when she silenced him. She drew the last word right into her mouth and kissed him soundly. Several men whistled behind Sandor, as she had moments earlier. She slid her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer still, moving her mouth against his, communicating clearly her desire for him. Everyone could see and witness what he’d earned.  The Hound was wanted, not forced upon her.  

 

Sansa broke their kiss. Sandor’s eyes were wide as they searched her face. There was something in them Sansa didn’t recognize, but it reminded her of Lady before she would pounce on her prey. “Your wife looks forward to this evening with her husband,” she murmured, a new husk to her voice she wasn’t aware that she knew how to perform. Sandor continued to stare her down, his hands holding onto the fence between them tightly, and Sansa thought back on their first night together as man and wife; when he had gripped his chair until his knuckles turned white. And all because of a kiss from her lips.  

 

Reality began to creep back into Sansa’s field of vision. There were cat calls now from some of the men, bidding Sandor to either bed his wife or cuff her ear. She tried to excuse herself, jumping lightly down from the fence and lowering her head. _She_ didn’t feel shame at her actions but, perhaps, her husband did. That hadn’t been her intent at all and now she felt like a guilty child.  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed at him, walking slowly away, along the fence line.

 

He followed her; that strange burn still smoldering in his eyes while he chewed at the inside of his lip. The fence kept them separated for twenty paces and then there was a gap he could pass through. Sandor took her upper arm, his hold not ungentle, as in times past when she’d been found out and he would escort her back to her room. Just like those other times, Sansa’s stomach plummeted, expecting a lecture and an angry tone. He marched stiffly, almost dragging her along. Sansa had to trot in order to keep up with him. The men’s fading voices hooted behind them.

 

They made their way to a back passage. One used by maids and laundry women, though they encountered no one on their climb back up to the third floor and their shared room. Sandor pushed her through the doorway first, shutting the door and setting both bolts at the top and bottom of it. He’d never done that before! Sansa opened her mouth, apologies of all sorts ready to tumble out of her, but she never got the chance to utter one. Her voice withered away in her throat as she watched Sandor approach her, tearing the gauntlets from his hands and letting them fall where they would. Then he was spinning her, pinning her to him and _oh!_ There was a hard press at her flesh from his breeches.

 

He bit at the back of her neck, one hand snaking its way around her middle to reach up and completely encompass one of her breasts. Sansa relaxed and touched her hands to the arm around her waist. She hadn’t angered him after all. Not in the least, if his near savage attack on her neck was any indication. She found herself enormously grateful that she’d asked Brighton to pin her hair up that morning. It gave Sandor more room to work and skin to explore. Sansa leaned into her husband’s embrace, humming as the back of her hand brushed over his cheek. Both her breasts had peaked within her clothing at his attentions, the first bloom of arousal starting between her legs. Soon he would offer her the blindfold and they would love one another.

 

But Sandor tugged at her skirts and led her not to her side of the bed, where the blindfold lay. Instead, he took her to his side of the bed, one hand leaving her body to open the single drawer of the small table. He fisted something, all the while continuing to nip at her neck and the tops of her shoulder blades, peeking out from her dress. Sansa felt something cold in her hand, a contrast to Sandor’s warm fist around it. She brought the object up to her face. It was a miniature cobalt bottle, in the shape of a pear, the carvings etched into it suggesting it was meant more as a representation of a feminine chalice rather than actual fruit. Sandor rubbed his chin into her shoulder, waiting it seemed, for her to react. She was thoroughly puzzled. Was she supposed to know what his offering was?  The feeling of being more girl than woman was back.

 

“What is it?” she asked bashfully.

 

“The night I went to Littlefinger’s,” Sandor told her, “it was for that. Not Brighton. Hadn’t planned on her but it seemed like the sort of thing you’d do.”  He pointed to the bottle. “That’s for _you_ ,” he said with emphasis and Sansa shook her head, still not understanding him. He exhaled, a hint of irritation behind it, and lowered the hand at her breast to her heat, rubbing his fingers over her once, making her gasp. “Put it there and you won’t feel pain when a man takes you,” he growled into the spot at the nape of her neck where baby fine, ruddy hair grew. Sansa’s entire chest erupted with the sensation of a hundred butterflies fluttering inside her.  It was some sort of numbing oil to keep a virgin from experiencing the pain associated with losing her maidenhead. He wanted her to use it? Now? She couldn’t help but ask that exact question out loud.

 

Sandor’s response was to turn her around to face him and squeeze her in a hold so urgent she could hardly find air to breathe.  It was beyond an embrace. It was his way of both asking and insisting. Sansa nodded her head against his chest, listening to his heart that pounded away beneath his armor. Then he was backing up from her, turning, she supposed, to give her a bit of privacy while he loosened and removed his armor.

 

Sansa couldn’t move. She knew she should undress, uncork the little bottle and do as Sandor had instructed with it. But how much of it was she to use? Did it go all over her or just outside? She’d never placed her own fingers inside herself, though Sandor had touched that secret place with his own large digits. And did she truly wish to use the oil? It was tempting, to be sure.  But if she couldn’t feel him tear her maidenhead, would she be able to feel _anything_? She knew, beyond all doubt, that she’d take pain over nothing at all.  So she stood, frozen and contemplative until Sandor turned around in only his breeches, the outline of his ready cock clearly visible.

 

“You were supposed to use it,” he said simply, giving her a patronizing look.

 

“I know,” she answered back firmly, making up her mind. “I don’t want it.” He looked . . . disappointed. “I meant the oil! Not you!” she quickly amended. “I don’t want to be numb, Sandor. I-I think it will be fine. You won’t hurt me. It can’t be any worse than when my moon blood flows.” She tried to give him a brave smile, but knew her eyes must show her nervousness. Her fingers held onto the bottle with all her might, willing them not to shake. He made no move towards her. Chewing at his thumbnail, his right leg twitched rapidly, the ball of his foot tapping out a rhythm just as fast as the beats of her heart. She put the bottle back on the table and reached for the blindfold, tying it herself to show her willingness.

 

Waiting, she counted in her head, knowing he would approach her with the blindfold now in place. She hadn’t reached five before he was pawing at her skirts and small clothes, nibbling at her earlobe and whispering his own fears to her. “I can’t,” he rasped. “I can’t be the one to hurt you, Little Bird. It will. I can’t do that to you. Use it for me if not for you. Just this once. Please.”  It was the second time she’d heard him use the word with her. Would it be so hard to allow him this treasure? Just this once, as he had said? “Little Bird,” he pleaded, a waver in his voice. “ _Please._ ”

 

Sansa swallowed past the lump in her throat, finding his lips and speaking words of consent while she kissed him. He trembled all over, kneading hard at her breast. The hand beneath her skirts moved out from under them and towards her back, pulling at the loose ties there.  He had her stripped within seconds it seemed, laying her down and lapping at her teats for long minutes after. Sandor rolled the both of them onto their sides, moving her down his body until their hips were aligned. She felt the smooth velvet that was his cock glide between her thighs, moisture there making the stroke easy on the both of them. He didn’t enter her, only moved himself within her outer folds. He whimpered while she purred. No, he wouldn’t hurt her, her body told her. Not truly, but if the oil made the act less worrisome for him she would accept it. This was not going to be a lone, single occurrence between them. She would have years ahead of her to feel him properly inside her.

 

When she started to move her hips in time with his, he jerked back from her, breathing loudly into her hair. She reached for him and he laughed, placing his hands between her and her goal. “Impatience woman,” he chuckled. “Wait a minute or you’ll end up with seed on your belly and be a maiden for an hour more.” Sansa blushed at his honest words. She kept her hands high on his body, tracing the bones beneath the hollow of his throat and tilting her head up to kiss the underside of his chin. Gentle, slow, movements she gave him until she felt him stretch over her. A stopper was released; the tiny, popping sound making her smile.

 

Sandor’s hand pressed at her shoulder, rolling her onto her back. His fingers pushed at her thighs next, bidding her to open them to him. She did so, waiting on him to use the oil on her. She heard the clink of the bottle, being place on the table and then he moved his middle finger into her core. Sansa was dripping, the anticipation of what was to come stirring lust within her. She knew Sandor could please her and she could do the same for him. This was going to be the same, yet different. It would be fine, she thought, enjoying the feel of him inside her, twisting to find every place he could to coat with the oil. Sansa wondered what it was supposed to be doing. It seemed like nothing at all was occurring. And then a chill started inside her. It was cold! Damned cold! His finger was ice inside her, making her draw in a fast breath.

 

“Does it hurt?” Sandor asked, concern in his tone.

 

”It’s _cold_ ,” Sansa giggled. “It feels strange but no, it doesn’t hurt.”  Sandor grunted his approval and pulled his finger from her depths, making a few passes over her outer folds. They tingled with a chill, but it wasn’t as intense as the one that burned inside her. In fact, she was starting to feel rather warm inside of her womanhood now. The cold was switching to heat. A heat that grew hotter and hotter with each passing second, causing her to whimper and writhe.

 

Sandor, again, used his hands to spread her thighs further, settling himself in the cradle created by her body. Sansa could feel the course hair of his legs against the smoothness of her own. The tingling in her folds had turned to heat as well and she moaned wantonly when she felt the long shaft of his cock slide over her core. Sandor bent to kiss the side of her breast. He was struggling for air just as she was. And then there was pressure at the very center of her heat. She felt something push up and into her. Sandor had her hips in a grip that, despite his best efforts up until now, was sure to leave marks. There was a stretching sensation within her but no pain, as he had said. Above her, a slew of curses fought their way out of her husband’s mouth between grunts and snarls. He paused, rocking against her in small movements.

 

“Is that?” she whispered.

 

“Fuck me, that’s half,” he groaned. “Don’t move. Don’t you dare move.”

 

Sansa almost cried. She wanted desperately to move. The oil had dulled some sensations but heightened others. It felt as if there were molten metal within her. It couldn’t be a cock he’d stuck inside of her. It was a sword! She was certain! It was freshly brought from the forge, still glowing red hot within her, sharp and demanding. She wanted to fulfill its needs with her own. Wriggling helplessly, Sansa tried to be still but found she could not. Sandor bucked and there was a fast moment of severe pressure within her. Gasping and saying her name, Sandor moved his hips back and away from her, then snapped them forward. Every stroke was flames and heaviness building up inside her.

 

Sandor’s hands had moved to just under her ribs, while he continued on cursing, though his voice was strained and sounded as if he were holding back tears. Sansa could feel his hair tickle her belly, his spine bowed over while his cock moved inside her. Sansa wasn’t sure if she could reach her peak this way. It was torturous; the friction inside her felt so _good_ , but the oil had damped her rapture as she had suspected it would. Sandor was gone; somewhere lost in pleasure as he began to move erratically above her. His face was pressed down into her teats. Over and over all she heard him cry out was, “Little Bird.”  

 

Then he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her with his weight. She could feel the muscles of his back and bottom clenching. He moaned, long and loudly, a shudder overtaking him that started at the place they were joined and spread over his entire body. Gods help her, he was keening brokenly while his hips thrust into her, again and again, though his pace slowed. The pressure in her core lessened and she felt something slip from inside her. Sandor’s head rested at her breast, and though his body made it hard to breath, she didn’t ask him to move. He cleared his throat twice before speaking.

 

“Alright?” he asked cautiously.

 

“Better than that,” she told him sincerely. “Wonderful.”  She sat up a bit to place a kiss to the crown of his head. “And you?”

 

He only shook within her arms in reply, rubbing his cheek across her skin. Sounds escaped him. Sighs and the start of words that never grew into anything other than short “ahs” and “ohs”. Finally he gave up, pulling one of her hands to his chest, above his heart. She curled her fingers into the hair there while he pressed her nails into his flesh. “You don’t know,” he rasped, repeating his words from weeks ago. But Sansa _did_ know. And they would keep on knowing together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mer6X7nOY_o&list=RDmer6X7nOY_o
> 
> Watch it and prepare for waterworks!


	8. Chapter 8 - Love

 

 The day his brother fell, Sandor had been completely unresponsive to her when he came to their chambers that night. He was mute, staring off at the wall, seeing something she could not. He stood unmoving while she worked his armor off of him. Climbing on one of their chairs, she took the last of it off and then pulled at his face to kiss his lips. He tasted like wine. It was a strong, sour flavor created by bottles not cups. His mouth didn’t move but she saw something come alive in his eyes and then he was swatting her hands off of him and storming over to his bookcase.

 

Sandor flopped to the ground, yanking books from the lower shelf and tossing them over his shoulder carelessly. The books landed haphazardly around him and Sansa cried out at the harsh treatment he was giving them. He paid her no mind, reaching to the back of the shelf and pulling a long, brown bottle from the place he’d hidden it. Sansa began collecting and piling the scattered books. She placed them near him and when he uncorked his find, she smelled something foul. It made her eyes water from several feet away!

 

“What’s that?” she questioned.

 

“It’s a fucking drink, what’s it look like?” he growled, tipping the bottle back and taking several large gulps from it. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve when he was finished. “Strong wine,” he rasped. “Been saving it for years. Seems a good time for it. Whole lot of them dead now. Only me left. Bloody piece of shit.” 

 

Sansa wasn’t sure if it was his brother or himself that he spoke of. She knew what his brother had done to him to cause his burns. And she was certain there was more she didn’t know of. It was best to let him drink till he passed out. She could try and speak to him tomorrow or the day after. It was stupid to try and do so now. He was a creature of habit and liquor had always been an answer to him in times of extreme stress. It wasn’t ideal but at least he wasn’t out hacking at some innocent or brawling in a tavern. He had drunk his bottle or two, or maybe more, and come back to her, though he was unable to voice what he needed from her. His tone was nasty but she’d grown used to that as well. All it meant, was that he was hurt, and the animal part of him was trying to lick at his wounds alone while the man searched for someone to share in his pain.

 

She knelt between him and the bookcase. “If you want to drink yourself into oblivion tonight, that’s your business,” Sansa said calmly. “But don’t make me an enemy. I’m not. You know it.”  She put a hand on his shoulder; a gesture they both knew to be symbolic between them. Then she rose, letting him be until he wanted her.

 

His hand shot out and up to grab her above the wrist. He pulled hard at her, and for the first time there was a twinge of pain from his touch. The force dropped her back down to her knees beside him. One hand gripped his bottle and the other her flesh. Sansa started to fear for him. He was caught up and tangled in a trap she couldn’t see. She didn’t know the way to lead him out of it and so, remained silent. Perhaps it was only her presence he was after.

 

Sandor drank from the bottle of strong wine again. His throat continued to bob after he’d lowered it from his mouth. He kept his eyes locked on the low fire Sansa had started hours ago. And then he spoke. His whole body trembled while he drank and told her of a family she’d never heard of until this moment. He spoke of his father; of setting snares in the woods while the man smiled proudly at him. His father had given him his first pup to train when he was barely out of swaddling clothes. But there were also stories of backhands and lashings when he’d done something wrong. Something as small as being a few minutes late to feed the beasts could earn him a whipping.

 

Then he spoke of a brother that learned from their father. The difference was his brother never learned true right from wrong. His father was a hard man, with a firm sense of discipline, but not heartless. His brother was hell-bent on bringing pain to all he could. No one was safe. And one by one Sandor’s family started to disappear. At first it was his favorite hound or barn cat. Then it had been his nursemaid. And then his sister. Before he’d been burnt he’d lost his younger sibling.

 

“Sometimes, I don’t know if she was real,” Sandor said in a dead, hollow tone. He’d started to cry when his sister was mentioned. “I can’t remember what she looked like. But the book . . .” He pointed to his mother’s volume of fairy tales on the shelf above Sansa’s head. “She was real, wasn’t she?” he asked her, tears in his eyes. Sansa carefully brought the aged book down from its resting place and opened it in her lap. On the inside cover a woman’s looping handwriting had recorded the names of her family and their respective name days. Lord and Lady Clegane and then three names beneath them. Two boys and a girl. Sansa gave her husband a watery look of her own and nodded her head.

 

Sandor went back to watching the fire. He whispered his way through the last of his family, his voice reminding Sansa of dry, crackling pages turning within some ancient tome. Sandor told her of his mother and father who had both followed his sister into the afterlife. The story of his mother’s death was so terrible Sansa had to beg him to stop, while she wept into the hem of her dress she’d drawn up to her face. Sandor looked dazed; confused at her reaction to his story, even though tears still fell steadily from his own eyes. He seemed unaware of his and puzzled by hers. Then his eyes drifted to the book in her lap and Sansa saw blazing hatred take hold.

 

“Bugger him!” he shouted. “Bugger them all!” He used the wall behind him to struggle his way onto his feet, swaying before finding his balance. “Useless horse shit!” he hollered, pouring the remains of his strong wine over the book. Sansa watched the pages soak up the plum colored liquid and the excess bleed out over her skirts. Sandor bent, taking the book from her, and stalked towards the fire. Sansa stood in alarm, realizing what he meant to do.

 

“No!” screamed Sansa, rushing to him and snatching the book out of his fingers. She would have never been able to do it if he’d been sober, but alcohol had loosened all his muscles so that she could pluck the book from his hold with ease. She hugged it to her chest protectively, praying he wouldn’t force it from her. He was stronger and he would win if they fought over it. His face went red with rage, the burnt side turning a deep shade of purple. “You can burn it tomorrow!” she pleaded. “Don’t do it now. Please! You might regret it. Wait one night, that’s all! If you still want to in the morning, I’ll build the fire back up myself.”

 

They both faced one another, chests rapidly moving while they sucked in air, waiting on the other to move first. The empty bottle slipped from Sandor’s fingers, shattering on the floor beneath it. His body flinched at the sound. Another minute passed. “He took _everything_ ,” Sandor gulped, starting to sob.

 

Sansa’s legs were weak, wanting to collapse beneath her. She’d never seen Sandor so overtaken by hate and grief. Not even when the fire had driven him to her door. He was well beyond that night now as he stood before her, choking on every breath he tried to take in. He _still_ thought himself alone. It was a struggle to speak past the sorrow that made her lips tremble and her throat cinch itself shut. But she had to. Her husband needed his wife.   

 

“I know I’m not a mother,” Sansa said, her voice breaking with every other word. “I’m not a father, or sister or brother. I can’t replace a family but, Sandor, he didn’t take all from you. You have me. And I’m still here. I won’t leave you.”

 

Sandor bunched his tunic within his fist, trying to somehow make his hand pass through it and reach his chest. He clutched near his heart, as if she’d actually stabbed him there with her words. Sansa cried with him as she watched him take in her words and let them break him. He stumbled to her, his face twisting with mournful need. Sansa found her entire head held between his hands while he pressed at her lips. It wasn’t a kiss. It was only a touch of lips and a clash of teeth as he continued to weep. His mother’s book fell to the bed beside them, forgotten.

 

“You said one day. One day. One day you said you would,” he spoke through wet gasps. It sounded like rambling to her. “Without the cloth. You promised, Little Bird.”

 

_Oh!_

 

He wanted _that_ from her. She brought her hands to either side of his face while he dropped his to his side. His eyes shut automatically, being so close to her while she touched his scars. “You have to look at me,” she breathed. They blinked at one another and then she gave him what he had asked for.

 

“I love you.”

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………

 

A month later they were the new Lord and Lady of Clegane Keep.  With Joffrey dead, Tommen freshly wed to Lady Margaery, and Tyrion on the run for crimes he still admitted no guilt in committing, the Queen Regent had sent the Hound back to his birthplace. He was a second son, but with the firstborn dead he was next in line to inherit the Keep. The intent was for him to keep the banners in the West faithful to the Lannisters.

 

“Be patient,” Sandor whispered into the shell of her ear on the first night in their new home. “When the time is right, I’ll take you home.”

 

She shook her head at him. “I _am_ home.  Home is you. Perhaps, one day, we’ll walk inside the walls of Winterfell. Perhaps not. Either way, we’ll be together.”

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Sansa often woke in the night alone. She would find Sandor at the base of the stairs on the first floor, staring at a door that she’d been told not to enter; the only one in the house he’d asked her to stay out of. Sometimes his hand would be on the knob, though she never saw him turn it. One day, while he was distracted by several visiting heads of households under him, she had turned the knob herself.

 

The room was covered in a layer of dust and filth. Her husband refused to let anyone in the room, even the servants. It was a sitting room; velveteen covered chairs and a desk made of dark wood were its furnishings. There were many tall windows, letting in an abundance of sunlight. Sansa stepped into the room, wondering why Sandor would deny her such a sunny space, perfect for entertaining or reading. And then she gasped, seeing the brazier set in a corner. There was a pile of half-burnt, gray and crumbling coal within it.  

 

Sansa’s heart lurched inside her chest, while she hurriedly stepped backwards out of the room. Above the rush of blood in her ears she could hear the screams of a boy from the past. Her backside hit something solid. She turned to find Sandor glaring at her but it wasn’t anger in his eyes. It was sadness.

 

“I told you not to,” he said wearily, pulling her from the room and shutting the door.

 

“I’m sorry!” she stammered. “I know I shouldn’t have. I’m so very-”

 

He lifted a hand to cut her off. “Just let it be. Don’t do it again?”

 

Sansa nodded her head in agreement but a plan was already formulating in her head. She wouldn’t go in again and she’d make sure no one else ever would.

 

……………………………………………………………………………………….

 

It had taken three months for her requested item to be made and delivered. She’d used every scrap of coin she had brought with her from King’s Landing and sold one of her jewels as well to make up the difference. The design she’d asked for had been simple and the size was small in comparison to others she’d seen. When she had first laid eyes on it she had cried and kissed the master weaver on his cheek.

 

She had to wait another week until Sandor left for a full day. She’d asked for a Gold Dragon to shop in the village and he had grinned at her before giving her the coin she’d requested. Then it was a mad rush to have several servants remove the door to the forbidden room, once Sandor was gone. She sent a kitchen boy to fetch two masonries she’d told earlier of her plan. They arrived an hour later and started to fill in the gap left by the missing door with stone and mortar. They set hooks in the top of the wall suitable to carry the weight of an iron rod and the final piece to her gift. She paid them with the Dragon Sandor had given her.

 

It was easy enough to hang the tapestry she’d ordered on her own. She rolled it up from the floor to the hooks set in the top of the wall, and tied the bundle up with thick, corded rope. And then it was only a matter of time. Sandor arrived home for a late supper. She greeted him at the door with an enthusiastic kiss and led him to the dining hall. Sansa had ordered a multitude of his favorites to be served. Sandor asked what the occasion was –it wasn’t his name day or an anniversary he was aware of- and she told him to have patience. He put away three plates while looking at her intrigued. One of his hands kneaded her thigh under the table.

 

He’d grown bolder, with both her and others; in body and in mind. Without a master to pull at his leash at all hours of the day, Sandor had begun to wade through his own wants and needs. He was becoming less Hound and more man. Sansa tried to be council to him, as a good wife should, and both of them were flourishing in their new home. Sandor still answered to the Lannisters but that house was in disarray now and could fall at any moment. King’s Landing, it was told by raven, was in complete pandemonium. Sansa had witnessed Sandor’s ingenuity over the past few months. The people of the land were loyal to the name Clegane; they would follow where Sandor led them. And if that place happened to be Winterfell instead of King’s Landing? Sansa smiled prettily at the table, thinking of her husband’s ability to gain allies and command.

 

After their meal, she suggested they move to the bedroom. Sandor gave her a wicked half smile, scooping her up into his arms right there at the table! She shrieked and smacked at his chest, but he only laughed and carried her off towards the stairs that led to their bedroom on the second floor. He stopped dead in his tracks when they rounded a corner. Ahead of them was the newly constructed wall. Sandor almost dropped her, then tightened his hold for a moment, before letting her slip down his body to find her feet.

 

Wordlessly, Sansa let him look as she inched her way over to the wall. She stood on tip-toe to reach the knots in the rope holding the tapestry up. When she reached for the last one, she heard Sandor move behind her. His fingers met hers to work at the last knot together.

 

“Little Bird?” he questioned at her side. It was a tone she’d heard before. One he only used with her. In the past she would have described it as frightened, but now, it had dulled to uncertainty. He was learning he could place his faith in her just as she did with him.

 

The final knot unraveled between their hands and Sansa stepped back. He mirrored her actions, watching the tapestry unroll to reveal a scene before them. A tree heavy with bright green leaves and flowering buds took up most of the tapestry. It was a spring tree; one of hope for the future to come. And under the tree sat two canines. A wolf was curled at the base of the tree, peacefully lying with its head resting on its front paws. Its eyes were open though, watching something off in the distance. Beside it sat a large hound, more alert and on guard. The hound wasn’t as relaxed as the wolf but it seemed content nonetheless. It too looked in the same direction as the wolf.

 

Sandor stood directly in front of the tapestry, his jaw clenching and unclenching. For a few moments Sansa feared he was angry, but then his eyes swept over the scene once again and Sansa saw a shimmer within them from the light of a nearby torch. “Here,” she said quietly, pulling at his sleeve. She moved him several paces to the left and had him look at the tapestry from the proper angle. Wolf and hound stared at their human counterparts.

 

They stood together, watching the animals watching them, for what seemed like hours. Every few minutes Sandor would look down at her, a different emotion dancing over his face each time. Wonder, sadness, gratitude, _love_. Sansa wrapped her arms around his waist, nuzzling into the cloth of his tunic. He allowed it, bringing his arm over her shoulder to hold her closer to him. At last he sighed deeply, and took her hand, leading her up the stairs and to their bedroom.  Brighton stood outside the door, ready to help Sansa undress, but Sandor waved her away.  With her mother’s permission and few handfuls of gold, Sandor had brought the little one with them to the Keep.

 

Inside, a servant had started a fire. Sweet biscuits with strawberry jam and blood red wine sat on the table within their chambers. Sandor hadn’t said a word, beyond his secret name for her, since supper and remained silent as he stripped her of all clothing. Sansa knew what came next and reached for the blue cloth that was starting to fray at the edges. She smiled at her husband before placing the cloth over her eyes and turning around for him to tie it, as always. It was a custom that was so familiar now it excited her.

 

Sandor’s fingers trembled at the back of her head. That wasn’t right. Nerves hadn’t come into play between them for months now. Sansa bit at her lip with worry. Then the cloth was gone and she could see. “Sandor?” she questioned, turning to find out what had gone amiss. He was already at the hearth, looking at the blue silk within his fingers, rubbing it thoughtfully. Then he tossed it into the flames and Sansa couldn’t stop the happy tears that began to stream down her face. He came back to her, kissed her tears, bared himself to her and each loved the other with nothing between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you so much devilsbastian for all the hard work bringing this one to life with me.


	9. Bonus Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist an expansion of the last paragraph of chapter 8 from Sandor's POV. Enjoy.

There was a part of Sandor sorry to see it go. Sansa’s strip of blue silk started to burn immediately after it left his hands and fell into the flames within the hearth. Fire raced across it, thin lines of orange burning green from the dye of the cloth. It was beautiful in a way, he supposed. Fire, as a general rule, wasn’t anything to be placed in the category of beautiful, but Sansa’s silk made it so. Like the woman herself, the cloth shined brightest when faced with flame.  But Sansa didn’t succumb to the fire he carried within. She fed on it, it seemed. And that, in turn, lessened the damage it tried to spread inside him.

 

Fire had taken much from him during his lifetime; his face, his pride, his dream of a song freely given. All spoils won by fire over time. But this time he gave to the flames. It took nothing from him and when he turned to face Sansa, he saw tiny rivers of tears on her face.

 

She knew.

 

And the heart he once thought long dead, threatened to crack through the ribs surrounding it, so full –to the point of bursting- with love that she had put there. Sansa knew what had been taken from him. She knew there was little he’d been able to take for himself over the years. She knew him like no other could, or likely, ever would.

 

Fire had stolen his ability to bed a woman. Not physically, not totally. It had toyed with his mind and left him soft where there should have been heat and hardness. Sansa had given him a cloth of brown, from his own armor, and created a bridge for him to cross; a simple solution in hindsight, yet there’d never been someone before her to willingly take on the challenge that the Hound posed. Now, he gave a cloth back to the flames that had started the entire circle, claiming his right to a life deserved.

 

A few steps towards her and he found his hands beneath her jaw, tilting her chin up. Eyes, that still held water within them, stared up at him. And there was blue to replace that which he’d burnt. Blue, courted by frost and kissed by winter. A color that gray could only strive to be.

 

Sansa tried to stifle her weeping, to dampen her emotions, knowing tears usually brought forth anger in him. But this time was different. The shimmer of salt on her face hadn’t been formed by sorrow or pain. She held her breath, and he could see her throat swallow what should have been a sob. He felt guilt that he should rob her of the need to shed tears if she wished.

 

On her left cheek, his thumb circled to blot at the wetness there, and on the right his lips consumed the rest. He had tasted a multitude of flavors over the past months. Since she’d bound herself to him, he had learned what every inch of her had to offer his tongue. But this was the first time he tasted her tears; the saltiness lingering, bittersweet in his mouth.

 

She smiled once he finished; a joyous reflection of his own hard-won happiness. Slight fingers pulled at the wide, leather strings on the front of his tunic and urged him to lift the fabric over his head. It was a permissible move. He had learned to accept her gaze on his half-clothed body. Her eyes were sparkling jewels, alive with youthful curiosity, as her fingers coiled around the knot holding up his breeches. Staying her hand, he inhaled deeply. Soon, his eyes spoke to her. A shy nod was her answer back. She’d been waiting months for this moment, and her enthusiasm at his sudden consent was understandable. He, on the other hand, had known this was coming -had been dreading it- but also, secretly wanting it as well.

 

It was difficult –fucking hard as anything he’d done in his life, save survive his burns- to give her words, but sometimes, even _he_ knew they were necessary. He moved her head gently to the side, lowering his mouth to her ear. It was easier when he didn’t have to look at her. He was a damned coward for it, but the knowledge never stopped him from avoiding her eyes. Words wouldn’t come if he had to look at her and watch their effect.

 

“A suit of armor,” he started, trying to organize his feelings into something tangible in the air.

 

“Wha-“ Sansa began, confused. Then she stopped herself. She knew he’d find his own way now. All she had to do was wait for him to walk the path to her. “Yes?”

 

“Been through two of them since I stopped growing. They take a beating even the finest smith can’t work out after so many years. They wear out. No matter what you do. They give out eventually. Thought I was one, once. Too many dents. No one to work on them. Thought I’d end up scrapped and melted back down.”

 

“Perhaps you were. But not scrapped, Sandor. Remade. There’s a difference.”  Sansa’s cheek moved to his chest, smoothing across his skin before laying a tender kiss on him. Sandor rested his chin on the top of her head, letting her curls brush against his throat.

 

“If that’s true, you’re the one that shaped it.”

 

He could feel her smile, right next to his heart. “I was the reason, not the creator. That was you. It’s always been you.” Lacing her fingers through his, she gave them a squeeze.

“I like this new suit. I liked the old one as well,” she said affectionately, the hair on his chest stirring from her breath. Pulling her hand up next to her face, he paused and waited. Sansa spread her fingers wide, covering his heart entirely. He pressed his palm to the back of her hand, covering hers with his. I love you, was a phrase his tongue wasn’t able to form, but she understood what the gesture meant all the same.  

 

“You don’t know,” he whispered and Sansa giggled; a sound like harp strings being plucked, attractive like all the rest of her. Each laugh was a different tune, but this one he liked best. The one she only gave to him.

 

“I do,” was her reply. “I love you, as well.”  All he could do was let a contented rumble vibrate in his throat.

 

Giving his chest a pat, she slid under his arm and embraced him from behind, a reversal of his usual hold on her. His back arched at the contact of her bare breasts. The skin there was pink and new, and touch of any kind to it sent shivers down his spine. There were deep scars, but Sansa’s jars and bottles had healed the open wounds and allowed his body a chance to repair itself.  He would never admit it out loud, but all those nights and mornings spent under her care, had healed more than just flesh and blood.

 

Her lips traced a path over his skin, while her arms came to rest below his sternum. Up the curved muscle of a shoulder blade, as far as she could reach on her own, and down the other side. A feather light touch turned into drawn out kisses in her journey from shoulder to shoulder. The last one was wet, her breath chilling the warm spot her tongue left upon him. Despite his reservations over what the next hour would bring, there was a stir, a throbbing ache she’d woken within him, which he was powerless to try and deny. His stomach tensed, his fingers twitched, and just as he was about to lean back into her -accepting her offer of seduction- she laughed and placed a final, solid kiss to his flesh. Her arms retreated and for a moment he felt cheated.

 

Sansa scampered across the room. Her unbound hair bounced, as did her teats. Every step was a small dance as she landed on the balls of her feet and quickly pushed off the floor to take another step.  She blew out most of the candles and dimmed the oil lamps. There was light enough, but he was glad for her understanding. He felt more at ease with low glows rather than gross illumination. The candle’s light flattered his wife as well, her naked form bathed in smooth, flickering, radiance. She twirled once, in front of their shared bed, clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer. Her wide eyes and rapidly moving chest told him it wasn’t an answer from the Gods she was after. It was him she wanted.

 

Sandor was a skeptical, questioning man by nature, and life had chiseled him into a half-beast, exceedingly hesitant to trust others, but he wasn’t an imbecile.  A naked, red haired lover, all but chirping for him to have her, wasn’t a thing he would pass up, no matter what the outcome may be. Most wouldn’t think it of him, but he had yearnings and dreams. Fears and doubts as well. And Sansa encompassed them all.

 

Her hands fell lower the closer he stepped towards her. Fingers that had touched every part of him, skimmed over her own body, to settle just above her second crop of curls. He dipped his head, intent on kissing her thoroughly and paused. This was the point when cloth usually came between them. One step forward and there would be no going back. He was hardly aware of the hand that mimicked his mouth, hovering over her breast.

 

There was enough room for perhaps two sheets of parchment between their lips. One for his dreams and one for his doubts. Swaying forward on her feet, it was Sansa that plucked the invisible missives from the air, tossing them aside when her lips met his. He caught her, holding her firmly while she led for a moment. The swirl of her tongue and the light nip to his chin told him she’d read every word written on his page of dreams; the knuckles that grazed over his burns said she’d given just as much attention to his page of doubts.

 

His Little Bird was clever. She used every trick she’d learned to distract him. Pulling the bottom of his ear between her teeth left him rocking on his feet. Another caress across his jaw, a slow suckle to his throat, and he was lost until he heard a gasp escape his own throat. She’d loosened the ties on his breeches while his focus has been elsewhere. Cloth slid down his hips while her hand came to rest over him.  Her eyes darted from her hand to his face, and though she was no longer a maiden, he bore witness to a virgin’s inquisitive touch. She’d felt him well enough in the past, but she’d never _seen_ him. Fingertips pressed against him and her eyebrows rose. When _he_ rose, a look of pride passed over her face.

 

She sighed when he cupped her teats. She was _happy_. It was near impossible for him to comprehend how he could elicit such a response from someone. The women of his early years were to blame for his struggle to accept adoring eyes upon him, but it wasn’t their fault. At one time he had hated them. Then he grew to understand. It was only human nature to recoil from a man, huge and angry as he was, with a face to match the look of rotted meat. He learned quickly that he preferred to fill his head with images, and take care of matters on his own, rather than face pity and scorn. Preference became habit. Habit became simply _the way things were_. Somehow his mind convinced his body to respond only when he was far away, hidden and safe, from a woman. There were no tears, no jests, or splashes of vomit on his boots when he was alone.

 

But this was Sansa, he told himself. She may have cried once, but it was his own doing by forcing her to look at him, tired, half in his cups, and irritated with her pure outlook of the world. She hadn’t trembled in fear before him after they wed and she had _never_ laughed at him. His breath, long held, left him as he felt her grip his cock. Soft explorations were over with as her fingers stroked him, unhurriedly, until he grunted and thrust into her palm.

 

Then she was pulling him, by both his wrist and rigid cock, down and overtop of her as she eased back onto their bed. He should have spent more time on her. Should have but didn’t; two sides of him warring and each one of them wanting nothing more than to sink into her. There was a need to connect the two of them immediately, to surrender, followed closely by the thought that he wanted it over with. If he could manage this one time, surely the next would be easier? It wouldn’t burn to watch her as he filled her after this night, would it?

 

Her hips shifted beneath him and he found his place within her. Her usual, pleasured sounds filled the room. His eyes slammed shut. He tried. Tried with all he had to open them and felt a sickening disappointment in himself when he could not. Sansa’s hands cradled his face.

 

“You can look,” she whispered. He laughed bitterly, a better response in his mind than weeping. It was like another time between them. Green fire had licked at his heels then. Wine had mixed with fear to send him into an emotional rampage. And like that time, he now had her pinned to a bed he wished to drive her into. But there was no knife or threat of violence. This time she was willing.

 

Sansa inhaled, her hands still at either side of his face, as if she meant to speak. Bone and sinew, Hells a _missing ear_ , didn’t deter her. Don’t sing, his mind begged. _Please, don’t sing. I’ll die. I’ll fucking die._ He felt her lips under his palm. He had, unknowingly, covered her mouth while he choked out words he’d meant to keep silent. Her head nodded as she tugged at his wrist and he quickly removed his hand, troubled by his actions.

 

He knew what he was supposed to do at this point. His cock, at least, was cooperating. Giving her a few thrusts, he hid behind closed eyes and waited for her to find her end. But she wasn’t to be satisfied with his body only. Her legs lifted high, to dig her heels into his thighs and push against him, denying him further entrance.  

 

“Please,” she tried once more. “Sandor, open you eyes.”  She wanted every last grain of sand within his soul’s hourglass this night. Her mercy would come at a price he wasn’t certain he could survive.

 

He shook his head forcefully. “Can’t.”   

 

She sighed and he could sense the frustration in it. Like a horse being broken, he’d taken to the bit of marriage, but he fought the saddle of becoming beloved. Sansa’s fingers glided, hooking his hair behind the one ear he had left. Then her hands joined at the back of his head, pulling him down so that she could speak into what remained of the other.

 

Her voice was the cruelest kindness he had ever encountered. Her words were always carefully chosen and relentlessly fought against his demons. “You think by covering my eyes, you took my sight?” Sansa’s lips granted him a kiss at his temple. “Oh, love. I’ve seen your face in the darkness every time. You can not hide from me that easily. There is nothing here that hasn’t already been.”

 

The words struck him as sure as any blow in battle. Gray eyes opened and met blue. In a way never done so before; a first true look between husband and wife. Sansa’s heels moved from his body to the bed, as she welcomed him back to her. It was her turn to wipe at his face, kiss his eyes and taste his salt. There was nothing there in the blue but love and care; gifts he knew he didn’t deserve but fiercely wanted. Compassion was a brutal thing to give a man so lacking in experience with it.  He was dependent upon it at this point. Another secret buried deep within him. From the first moment she put a hand on him, all those months and years ago, she had given them both over to fate.

 

Any slight bit of good left in him, she had drawn out, like a maester would a poison. And instead of tossing it aside, treating it as the toxin he’d always perceived it as, Sansa had nurtured it and let it grow. She cherished his stunted integrity until it was no longer a poison at all, but something vastly different.

 

 

Dignity. She’d given him his dignity back. It was painful at times, and she was unapologetic in her pursuit to build a life worth living with him, but he relished in every moment. Tears gave way to pleasure. Too fascinated with watching her eyes as she came undone for him, he held back on the instincts that bid him to complete that which his body was made to do. He watched her climb, ever higher to her peak, and shuddered when he realized there was no face looking back at him in her eyes. Being this close to her, there was no monster. Only blue. Brilliant blue, calling out to him in desire and acceptance. Had he known this fact earlier in life, he might have had a woman sooner. But there was a part of him, ever grateful, that all the moments he had missed should be reserved for Sansa.

 

There was a change in her eyes. A flash of recognition that he had found _exactly_ the right spot within her. Her eyelids fluttered shut, while her walls began to clench around him. He pulled at her hair, growling, “Don’t you close your eyes now. Look at me when you sing.”  She obeyed, grinding against him and letting loose a rapturous call. He joined her in song, unable to resist the flood of feelings, held back for so long, now released. There were those few glorious seconds in time when the two of them made him whole.

 

He wasn’t certain how long he remained on top of her once their lust had cooled to a tight embrace, neither one wishing to break the link between them. But at some point, he rolled them to their sides, raking his fingers through her curls and silently thanking her with a look. She kissed him deeply, combing his hair in return. Drowsy, weak muscles relaxed. He fought against the sleep that tried to claim him until she promised her eyes would be there when he woke. And then he dreamt peacefully, secure in her pledge to love him always.

 

 

 

 


End file.
